This policy paper aims to understand the barriers faced by urban poor Malaysians in Kuala Lumpur in accessing SA, as well as their experiences in navigating the SA system. This case study focuses on the ease of access to SA of residents in PPR, who comprise a majority of urban poor Malaysians,...

Chile combines high income levels and strong human development outcomes with persistent inequality. This paper examines the country's social protection matrix, focusing on its institutional configuration, financial structure, and main outcomes. The analysis distinguishes three core components-...

Evolving from post-independence emergency relief to a diverse range of programmes addressing poverty, food insecurity, and lifecycle vulnerabilities, Bangladesh has made significant progress in social protection provision over the years. This paper critically examines the evolution, coverage,...

While Viet Nam has been remarkably successful in poverty reduction, the country is faced with various challenges ranging from uneven pockets of poverty, regional inequality, low labour productivity, and high informality rates, to a fast-ageing society. We offer an updated overview of the social...

Cahyadi et al. (2020) examine the cumulative effects of conditional cash transfer programs in Indonesia after 2 and 6 years. They find beneficial effects for several of the indicators targeted by the cash transfer programme. They find a substantial increase in childcare using trained...

Colombia has a complex legal framework meant to protect the population against basic risks through a combination of contributory and non-contributory social insurance. The population is almost perfectly split between them, with eligibility to participate in the latter determined by poverty....

This paper investigates the relationship between piped water access and food consumption in Pakistan utilizing the nationally representative Household Integrated Economic Survey. Access to piped water reduces exposure to waterborne illness, improving health and labor productivity, which can...

We evaluate the Education Maintenance Allowance, a large conditional cash transfer scheme that paid low-income teenagers in England to remain in education beyond age 16. Using the staggered national roll-out of the programme and linked administrative data tracking education, earnings, welfare...

The job guarantee (JG) has long been theorized as a cyclical stabilizer, a buffer stock of publicly employed workers that expands in downturns and contracts in booms. That framing was useful but is no longer sufficient. This paper reframes the JG as a permanent structural reform - a new labor...