Social policies play a critical role in the transformation of emerging economies. This paper discusses this with reference to China and India, with their very distinctive public policy approaches. Much of the economics literature either does not pay much attention to social policy or regards it...

This Working Paper presents an analysis into the adequacy of Pakistan’s social protection response to the COVID-19 pandemic and highlights pertinent policy takeaways for turning the health crisis into an opportunity for a strengthened social protection system in Pakistan. It focuses on Ehsaas...

Mozambique is a low-income, Southern African nation with an estimated population of 28 million people, 67 per cent of whom live in rural areas. Women comprise 51 per cent of the population, and 45 per cent of the population are under 15 years old (World Bank 2015). (...)

Zimbabwe is a low-income, land-locked country in Southern Africa with an estimated population of 13,061,239 people, according to the latest census (ZIMSTAT 2012). Two thirds (67 per cent) of Zimbabweans live in rural areas, and 51.9 per cent of the total population are female (ibid.). Between...

Integrating information for the purpose of articulating social protection policies is hard work. It requires a combination of political will, capacity for institutional cooperation, software development and direct communication channels with citizens. Because of this complexity, countries that...

Malawi is a low-income, landlocked country in Southern Africa with a population estimated at 17.2 million in 2015. The country is divided into 28 administrative districts. Over three quarters (83.7 per cent) of Malawians live in rural areas, and 50.1 per cent of the total population are female....

Social protection policy in Brazil is a historically built patchwork of programmes that pay different values to people in the same situation, leaves many unprotected (in particular, 17 million children) and is fraught with duplications and other inefficiencies. This paper proposes an approach...