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Social Protection Podcast is brought to you by socialprotection.org. We’re a knowledge sharing and capacity building platform, open to social protection practitioners, policy-makers, and experts, as well as academics and students. Social protection is a large and growing field, that has also achieved increased profile and salience since 2020 due to COVID-19. From building delivery systems and protecting People with Disabilities, to social protection financing and school feeding – there is no shortage of topics for Social Protection Podcast to tackle. Each month we will aim to bring you rich, interesting and different content. Through interviews, discussions and debates with experts and practitioners, Social Protection Podcast will illuminate new research and bring a range of perspectives to debates and controversies as well as areas of growing consensus.
Episodes
Thursday Jul 27, 2023
Thursday Jul 27, 2023
It is estimated that around 418 million children benefit from school meals—around 41 per cent of children enrolled in primary school, a figure that has been increasing despite interruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a social protection mechanism, school-feeding programmes play a crucial role for children and families, especially when combined with local procurement policies for local smallholder farmers.
In this episode, we discuss how school feeding programmes impact vulnerable households and smallholder farmers, as well as how better to combine these two aspects in home-grown school feeding initiatives. We also explore the role of international cooperation in sharing experiences and advancing good practices.
Thursday Jun 29, 2023
Thursday Jun 29, 2023
The value of unpaid care and domestic work has been estimated at around 11 trillion US dollars—roughly 9 per cent of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP)—while low-paid domestic workers make up more than 20 per cent of the global care workforce. Social protection mechanisms can play a major role in achieving a balance between increasing access to high-quality care and reducing gender inequalities resulting from unpaid care work.
This episode focuses on how social protection mechanisms, particularly social care services, can help ameliorate the inequities involved in care work, including access, recognition and remuneration.
Meet our guests:
- Silke Staab, Research Specialist at UN Women
- Adriana Paz Ramírez, Latin America Regional Coordinator for the International Domestic Workers Federation
Resources:
- Child Care Services and Women’s Work
- UN Women. 2023. Innovations in Childcare to Advance Women’s Economic Empowerment
- UN Women. 2022. Increase Women’s Economic Empowerment by Transforming the Care Economy. Economic Justice and Rights Action Coalition, Economic Empowerment Section of UN Women.
For our Quick Wins segment, Ralf Radermacher, Head of the Social Protection Sector Initiative at GIZ, shared some key takeaways from the Global Forum on Adaptive Social Protection, a 3-day event that gathered policymakers, practitioners, and social protection experts to jointly examine and discuss the scope and potential of ASP to foster resilience and promote adaptation.
Quick Wins Resource
Thursday Jun 01, 2023
Thursday Jun 01, 2023
Adaptive Social Protection is an area of social protection that aims to build resilience of poor and vulnerable households by developing their capacity to prepare for, cope with, and adapt to shocks. In this episode, we are looking at adaptive and shock-responsive social protection in action in some of the most disaster-affected parts of the world.
We talk about how ASP can help build the resilience of households and enable people to take anticipatory actions before the onset of a shock. We draw from experiences in the Philippines and the Caribbean to learn how programmes can contribute to this type of approach, what is the importance of building appropriate registries and information systems, and what kind of financial instruments are put in place to funding ASP responses.
Meet our Guests:
- Riyad Katkhoda, Social Protection & Cash-Based Lead at the Caribbean Multi-country Office for the United Nations World Food Program
- Rosela Agcaoili, Social Policy Specialist at UNICEF Philippines
For our ‘’Quick Wins’’ segment, James Jumba, Independent Consultant, who previously worked as a Social security prosecutor at the National Social Security Fund in Kenya and is a former socialprotection.org Ambassador, shares with us the highlights of the Kenya Social Protection Conference and how Kenya could benefit for more resilience building approaches to climate risks.
Episode Links:
- E-learning | Micro-course series on Adaptive Social Protection
- Publication | Joint reviews for Adaptive Social Protection Systems - A working paper
- Publication | Adaptive Social Protection: Building Resilience to Shocks
- Publication | Strengthening Resilience through Social Protection Programs: Guidance Note
- Publication | Disaster Risk Finance for Adaptive Social Protection
- Publication | Adaptive Social Protection – The delivery chain and shock response
- Publication | Building on government systems for shock preparedness and response: The role of social assistance data and information systems
Quick Wins Links
- Event | The Kenya Social Protection Conference 2023
- Publication | Building resilience to climate risks through social protection: from individualised models to systemic transformation
Additionally, do not forget to take your time through our 5-minute annual satisfaction survey and register for the upcoming Global Forum on Adaptive Social Protection.
Thursday Apr 27, 2023
Thursday Apr 27, 2023
In this episode, our guests focus on the role of active labour market policies (ALMPs) in guaranteeing, supporting or even creating income-generation activities. Among other topics, we discuss the possible role of ALMPs in reducing informality in developing countries, and how well-integrated they are with other social protection mechanisms such as social insurance and social security.
Guests for this episode include:
- Veronica Escudero, Senior Economist, ILO
- Denni Pusba Purbasari, Executive Director, PMO Prakerja
- Jean Claude Muhire, Rwanda Program Director, Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative (UPGI)
In the “Quick Wins” segment, Jean Claude Muhire, Rwanda Programme Director for the Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative, BRAC, explains how ‘Graduation’ approaches, famous for being implemented in Bangladesh and Southeast Asia, are now being implemented in different contexts such as in Rwanda.
Quick Wins links:
Thursday Mar 30, 2023
Thursday Mar 30, 2023
In this episode of the "Social Protection for Prevention of and Response to Gender-based Violence" series, our guests talk about how social protection schemes can provide assistance to people fleeing gender-based violence. These people are vulnerable and may need many kinds of support.
We look at examples of programmes providing cash support for survivors of domestic violence, as well as those that facilitate access to other services, such as referral pathways, healthcare, housing, etc.
Guests for this episode include:
- Tara Patricia Cookson, Assistant Professor of Gender, Development and Global Public Policy at the University of British Columbia and co-founder of Ladysmith;
- Merike Blofield, Director of the Institute for Latin American Studies at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies and Professor of Political Science at the University of Hamburg; and
- Gerson Nombora, Child Protection Specialist at UNICEF Mozambique.
In the “Quick Wins” segment, Mayra Cardozo, a Brazilian lawyer and gender researcher, member of the National Human Rights Commission of the Federal Council of the National Bar Association of Brazil and Professor of Criminal Law at EPD, shares some of the findings of her research on the programmes in place in Brazil that help women and children who are survivors of domestic violence.
The joint webinar and podcast series "Social Protection for Prevention of and Response to Gender-Based Violence" is produced by socialprotection.org and the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), with support from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). Tune in for the first webinar of the series, Girls Deserve Better: Countering Violence Against Adolescents through Social Protection, taking place on 28 March at 8.30 AM EDT.
Episode links:
Webinar: Harnessing Social Protection the Address Violence against Women and Girls
Book: Unjust Conditions: Women’s Work and the Hidden Cost of Cash Transfer Programs
Article: UNICEF Mozambique shows how 'cash and care' accelerate child well-being
Quick Wins link:
Article: Financial Support for Victims of Domestic Violence in Brazil
Thursday Mar 16, 2023
Thursday Mar 16, 2023
In this episode of the "Social Protection for Prevention of and Response to Gender-Based Violence" series, our guests discuss how economic factors can drive gender-based violence at the community level, and why this is important for social protection programming. The focus is on designing social protection programmes that can prevent gender-based violence against women and people with diverse gender identities, expressions, and sexual orientations (SOGIESC).
The guests draw on available evidence and practical experience to discuss various aspects of the social protection delivery chain, including targeting, registration, payment, and the unique risks and issues related to people with diverse SOGIESC.
Guests for this episode include Shalini Roy, Senior Research Fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), and Emily Dwyer, Founder and Co-Director of Edge Effect.
In the "Quick Wins" segment, two guests from the World Bank—Alessandra Heinemann, Social Protection Specialist, and Gender Lead, and Palak Rawal, Gender and Social Protection Consultant—offer practical advice on designing social protection programmes that can safeguard and prevent gender-based violence. They also share additional resources for further reading on the topic.
The joint webinar and podcast series "Social Protection for Prevention of and Response to Gender-Based Violence" is produced by socialprotection.org and the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), with support from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). Tune in for the first webinar of the series, Girls Deserve Better: Countering Violence Against Adolescents through Social Protection, taking place on 28 March at 8.30 AM EDT.
Episode links:
- Publication: Cash transfers and intimate partner violence: A research view on design and implementation for risk mitigation and prevention
- Publication: We don’t do a lot for them specifically: A scoping report on gaps and opportunities for improving diverse SOGIESC inclusion in cash transfer and social protection programs, during the COVID-19 crisis and beyond
- Podcast: How can social protection impact gender-based violence?
Quick Wins links
Thursday Feb 23, 2023
Thursday Feb 23, 2023
Kicking off the three-part series ‘’Social Protection for Prevention of and Response to Gender-Based Violence’’, this episode presents a deep dive into what we know about the impacts of social protection on Gender-Based Violence (GBV) and some of the remaining knowledge gaps. We look at economic empowerment programmes and how they can help reduce economic stress and challenge gender norms that often drive violence in community settings.
Drawing from the available evidence, our guests were also invited to reflect on both the positive pathways through which social protection can contribute to reducing intimate partner violence (IPV) and the possibility of it introducing risks of increased violence. Finally, as some food for thought, what would a feminist social protection policy look like?
Our guests for this episode:
- Ana Maria Buller, Associate Professor in Social Sciences and Director of the Gender Violence and Health Centre, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
- Lusajo Kajula, Principal Investigator, UNICEF Office of Research - Innocenti
- Amber Peterman, Research Associate Professor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
For our ‘Quick Wins’ segment, Wessel van den Berg (MenCare Officer at Equimundo: Center for Masculinities and Social Justice) talks about ways to engage men in the dialogue around gender norms and roles as part of a gender transformative approach. What does this entail for social protection?
The ‘’Social Protection for Prevention of and Response to Gender-Based Violence’’ series is produced by socialprotection.org and the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), with the support from UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).
Episode links:
Public Work Programs and Gender-Based Violence : Evidence from Lao PDR
Domestic violence and workfare: An evaluation of India’s MGNREGS
Public Work and Private Violence
Cash Transfer and IPV Research Collaborative
Quick Wins links:
Applying a Masculinities Lens to the Gendered Impacts of Social Safety Nets
MenCare: A Global Fatherhood Campaign
Thursday Jan 26, 2023
Thursday Jan 26, 2023
The COVID-19 crisis has led to an acceleration in electronic payments of social protection benefits through individual bank accounts or mobile money. According to one global estimate, 80 million women opened accounts for the first time during the pandemic to receive government payments. Digital payments have long been seen as the first step towards improving people's financial inclusion and, by extension, their financial health.
In this episode, we discuss the idea of unbanked individuals gaining access to banking services and digital transactions, financial literacy, and savings options, and how this contributes to insurance, remittances, and other aspects. We also highlight the importance of careful and deliberate policy design to ensure that digital accounts can, in fact, open the door to greater financial inclusion instead of ending up as dead ends.
Our guests for this episode:
- Dr. Moizza Binat Sarwar, Research Fellow, Equity and Social Policy, ODI
- Astrid Devalon, Digital Financial Inclusion and Women's Economic Empowerment team lead, WFP
In the quick wins segment, Dominique Leska-See (Advisor for Digital Social Protection, GIZ) and Anita Mittal (Senior Advisor, Lead - Digital Convergence Initiative, GIZ) present the Digital Convergence Initiative for Universal Social Protection.
Resources:
Publication | Is going digital the solution? Evidence from social protection
Webinars | Talking interoperability - Dialogue Series
Publication | Digital Financial Inclusion and Women’s Economic Empowerment through Cash Transfers
Thursday Dec 15, 2022
Thursday Dec 15, 2022
After 2 years of COVID-19-dominated headlines, record inflation rates, and climate events taking centre stage in the global debate, it comes as no surprise that social protection might be called on to respond to these multifaceted crises. But can we forecast what the future of social protection might hold based on its latest developments?
For the final episode of the year, we invited Ugo Gentilini, Global Lead for Social Assistance at the World Bank, for a wide-ranging interview looking back at the main social protection themes in 2022. Among other topics, we talk about persisting myths, pathways for universality and the most interesting papers released over the year to help you catch up with that reading goal you might have set for yourself some months ago.
To shake up our traditional format a bit, the interview was paired with contributions by other members of our Social Protection Community, drawing attention to the big highlights of 2022, and their resolutions for the coming year. This episode features contributions from:
- Tomoo Okubo, Policy Specialist, UNICEF
- Christina Dankmeyer, Social Protection and Climate Change Specialist, ILO
- Vania Budianto, PhD Candidate, Australian National University
- Dr. Safdar A. Sohail, Dean of the National School of Public Policy (NSPP), Pakistan
Resources:
- Weekly Social Protection Links: Ideas, evidence and practices from the world of social protection... by Ugo Gentilini
- World Social Protection Report 2020-22: Social protection at the crossroads – in pursuit of a better future
- Tracking Global Social Protection Responses to Price Shocks: Living Paper v.3
- The impact of a poverty reduction intervention on infant brain activity
- The Politics of Distributing Social Transfers: State Capacity and Political Contestation in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia
- How Effective Is (More) Money? Randomizing Unconditional Cash Transfer Amounts in the US
Thursday Nov 24, 2022
Thursday Nov 24, 2022
In the aftermath of the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 27) and the important debates that followed, this episode discusses the relevance of social protection as an actionable strategy for climate action.
This year was marked by severe climate events and risks, with a rise in heatwaves, floods, droughts, and wildfires, leading to significant effects on those most vulnerable to environmental hazards. Many no longer perceive climate change as a future threat, but rather as a pressing reality that places countless people at risk of deteriorating living conditions and even losing their livelihoods.
How can social protection help address the risks posed by climate change today and in the future? To bring the issue into perspective, we asked our guests to reflect on both climate adaption and mitigation, focusing on possible pathways for environmental restoration and nature-based solutions, as well as an equitable transition towards a post-carbon economy.
Shedding light on these concerns, we heard from Bessie Msusa, Chief Economist in the Department of Economic Planning and Development in Malawi, and Cecilia Costella, Independent Consultant and Senior Advisor with the Red Cross Climate Centre. Finally, for this month’s Quick Wins, we were joined by Felicity O’Brien, Assistant Director at the Social Protection Team at Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).
Resources: