Social protection can be defined as "policies and actions which enhance the capacity of poor and vulnerable people to escape from poverty and enable them to better manage risks and shocks" (OECD/DAC 2009, 10). The term would thus include social insurance, social transfers and minimum labour...

Social protection schemes in Arab countries show deficits regarding efficiency and social fairness. Some Arab countries spend a fifth of their GDP on social protection but the bulk of funds goes to a relatively small group of urban middle income earners or is lost on half-way for administrative...

Many informal sector employees in developing and emerging countries lack access to reliable forms of social protection: They cannot afford to buy private insurance, they are not covered by social insurance, and they are not entitled to social assistance. Therefore, micro-insurance schemes have...

The article’s subject is social protection in the Arab world. Giving the example of Egypt, it asks why poverty is so widespread and why – despite the country’s numerous sophisticated social protection systems – social risks are a major contributing factor to it. It concludes that reforms...

Due to the modernisation of societies, traditional social security systems are getting weaker and less reliable. The state must therefore step in and provide social protection to its citizens. Whether they effectively do or not depends on their financial and technical capacities adn on the...

The majority of people in the informal sector have no access to reliable social protection schemes. This holds for the Arab countries just like for other parts of the developing world despite the fact that several Arab countries have made attempts to raise the share of households covered by...