Developing a Social Protection Index for Asia

Social protection is increasingly seen as an important tool for poverty reduction, but to date there have been few quantitative cross-country assessments of social protection provision. This article develops a social protection index that systematically and consistently quantifies activities at the national level. Four summary indicators representing the cost, coverage, poverty targeting and impact are scaled and weighted to produce an additive index of the overall level of social protection provision. The index is calculated for six very different Asian countries: Bangladesh, Indonesia, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan and Vietnam. Considerable contrasts are revealed between their levels of social protection provision. Copyright 2006 Overseas Development Institute.