Social Protection – current DFID engagement

Paul Wafer, Poverty Response Team Leader ILO Geneva ‘Show & Tell event’, May 2010 [email protected]

DFID’s policy position (10/05/2010)

tbc

…But there’s an ongoing portfolio of activity

•Bilateral country programming •Research and Evidence generation •Initiatives on Capacity Development •Multilateral Financing/ International

Bilateral Country Programming

•Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia: LIC focus (plus Yemen, Vietnam, Indonesia) • Systems strengthening – supporting national government led programmes - 10 year commitments in Mozambique, Zambia, Kenya; large programmes in Ethiopia, Ghana, Uganda, Zimbabwe; increasing engagement in Malawi, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, Nigeria - Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh

Reaching c 32 million beneficiaries 2010-2012

Research and Evidence generation

• Cash Transfers Evidence paper published by July 2010 • Long term programmes with research consortia: Chronic Poverty Research Centre, Young Lives, Pathways to Women’s Empowerment • Future Agricultures Consortium – Growth and Social Protection theme 2010-13 • Systematic reviews on 6 topics (autumn 2010) • Review of DFID’s Social Protection portfolio, 2011 • Short term policy research with ODI, IDS

Initiatives on Capacity Development

• Social Protection Manual/Toolkit with EPRI (South Africa) publishing in June 2010 plus online evidence database ( www.socialtransfersevidence.org

) • South-South Learning – Brazil-Africa Programme • Tailor-made in-house training for DFID staff – IDS, June 2010 (places for other donors too!) • Actively involved in PovNet Train4Dev training on social protection initiative

Multilateral Financing/ International

• Support to the World Bank’s Rapid Social Response Programme - £2m direct + £200m indirectly through the pilot IDA Crisis Response Window (CRW) • Funding/ active engagement in European Report on Development 2010 (SP focus) • Continued advocacy for SP through G20 • Ongoing work with OECD-DAC on Social Protection definitions/measurement …But would welcome more bilateral collaboration !

Poverty Response Team

• Established Sept 2009 • In DFID’s Governance & Social Development Group, Policy Division Paul Wafer, Tim Conway, Catherine Arnold, Andy Sumner; Karen Johnson, Phil Cockerill + Dennis Pain (Addis)

Not ‘Tell’ but Ask

•Keeping momentum on social protection as the agenda moves to ‘post-crisis’ – what’s needed?

•Scaling up in LICs – how to mobilise international action? •Yet more pilots or serious systems building? How?

•Building political coalitions for social protection in country – getting better at political economy?

Not ‘Tell’ but Ask - 2

•What about ‘Accra principles’ for Social Protection work at country level?

•An appetite for more comprehensive international coordination? •What lessons should we learn from sectors/issues that are ‘mainstream’ – does Social Protection need a Fast Track Initiative, ‘Global Consensus’ or Global Fund?