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De nombreux travaux académiques se sont penchés sur les facteurs influençant le niveau de générosité des bénéfices du soutien financier minimal dans les pays de l’OCDE dans les vingt dernières années. Les études ont ainsi découvert que la générosité des prestations pouvait être positivement liée avec un PIB élevé, un haut de degré de centralisation du régime d’assistance sociale et le développement d’un régime d’assurance sociale de type universel. De même, l’approche budgétaire comme méthode de détermination du niveau minimal des prestations d’assistance sociale a attiré davantage l’attention du monde académique dans les dernières années et on semble redécouvrir les vertus d’une approche budgétaire basée sur les besoins des prestataires. Toutefois, aucun chercheur ne semble avoir vérifié si l’utilisation de l’approche budgétaire comme déterminant du niveau de bénéfices d’aide financière de dernier recours était positivement ou négativement corrélée avec le niveau de générosité des bénéfices accordés. C’est cette vérification que ce travail s’est appliqué à faire. La conclusion principale de cette recherche est qu’en soi, l’utilisation d’une approche basée sur les besoins des prestataires pour établir le niveau des prestations d’assistance sociale n’est pas suffisante pour assurer un haut niveau de générosité des bénéfices. Il faut qu’un État fasse le choix de se baser sur un standard budgétaire qui permette d’atteindre un niveau de vie raisonnable ou décent pour garantir un degré de générosité de soutien financier minimal élevé. Les cas du Québec et de la Suède démontrent d’ailleurs comment le recours, pour le premier, à un budget de référence dit « de subsistance » peut influencer à la baisse la générosité des bénéfices, alors que celui d’un budget « raisonnable », pour le second, a influencé à la hausse le niveau de générosité des prestations., In the last two decades, many academics have studied factors that have an impact on the generosity level of minimum income protection in OECD countries. Studies have shown, for example, that benefit generosity was positively linked with high GDP, a high level of centralisation of social assistance schemes, and the presence of universal social insurance programs. Likewise, in recent years, academics have shown a rising interest about the budgetary approach based on beneficiaries’ needs as a mean of determining the minimum social assistance benefit level. However, no important study has verified if the use of reference budgets for determining and adjusting social assistance benefits was correlated with a high or low benefits level. This correlation is what this paper attempts to ascertain. The main conclusion of this research is that the simple use of reference budgets is not directly linked with a high level of benefit generosity. However, if a state uses a budgetary model that allows to achieve a decent and reasonable standard of living, it is very probable that the generosity of assistance to the able-bodied poor will be high. The case of Quebec shows moreover that the use of a reference budget aiming to reach a minimum level of subsistence can contribute to a decrease of benefit generosity. The Swedish case, however, demonstrates that the use of a reference budget allowing a decent living standard and social participation has influenced positively the generosity of social assistance benefits. This study also shows that political and economic concerns and pressures have had important, and generally negative, impacts on the generosity level of social assistance benefits over time.

This report was prepared at the request of the Philippines Social Security System (SSS) to analyze key challenges and propose reform options to improve the sustainability and expand the coverage of old age income protection for private sector workers. A simulation employing the Pension Reform Options Simulation Toolkit (PROST) found that the SSS scheme will face outflows greater than inflows in about 20 years and depletion of its assets in about 28 years. Fortunately, its medium-term financing issues can be addressed through the gradual introduction of parametric reforms that shield workers and retirees from abrupt changes in contributions and benefits. At the same time, the Philippines faces a challenge to improve the defacto coverage of workers by Social Security, and to increase the income protection coverage of the elderly. Options suggested include SSS measures to leverage its identification system and introduce a special instrument for informal workers. Rather than introducing matching contribution subsidies to expand coverage, it was suggested to broaden the scope of beneficiaries eligible for social pensions. Beyond the scope of the SSS, additional measures were suggested including those to improve the access and efficiency of contributions and payments systems, strengthening mobile-money platforms and efforts to improve access to savings instruments, particularly for small and isolated savers. The report points out that the key means of improving coverage lies beyond the scope of social security or pensions, namely, to improve the quantity and quality of wage-based employment.

This report provides an initial stocktaking of the characteristics, environment and performance of public and private pensions and elderly assistance programs in Sub-Saharan Africa. It identifies key challenges and suggests reform options for consideration. Considerations for future work and principles for pension policies are also suggested. Two major challenges noted in the report are the need to increase coverage of the labor force by pensions and social insurance schemes, and to increase the proportion of poor elderly covered by social assistance. The report suggests that improving coverage will require a number of parametric reforms to existing contributory schemes, strengthening institutions to serve informal sector workers, and piloting new design options. The report also proposes other parametric reforms, including the harmonization or merger of civil service and national pension schemes. Finally, the report recommends principles to consider for reform, including measures to improve coverage, protect the elderly poor, and better align pension design with needs and enabling conditions, including the needs of rural and informal sector workers.

This policy note examines Thailand's programs for preventing poverty among the elderly, and suggests options for improving the effectiveness of these programs. The number of elderly people in Thailand will increase dramatically over the next 30 years, and the elderly already have a higher poverty rate than the population as a whole. Although Thailand currently has a total of eight pension programs, the majority of the benefits go to those who are not poor. In addition, unlike most countries, Thailand lacks a pension and provident fund supervision agency or a consolidated financial institution regulator, and does not appear to have a well-articulated national pension policy. This has led to the development of two major sets of pension programs, with one group sponsored by the ministry of labor and the social security office, and the other by the ministry of finance and the securities commission. These are also supplemented by an assortment of social assistance and community programs sponsored by the ministry of social development and human security and the ministry of interior. This policy note will examine the above issues in more detail and recommend policy options to simplify and coordinate the various pension and social assistance programs aimed at preventing poverty among the elderly, target more spending at the elderly poor, and assure long-term fiscal sustainability.

Together with reductions in indirect taxes on food imports, cash for work programs were one of the main responses implemented by African governments following the food, fuel, and financial crisis of recent years. The main objective of those programs was to help the poor cope with the various shocks by increasing their net earnings through community-level work paid for under the programs. Yet it is unclear whether these cash for work programs indeed reached their intended beneficiaries and to what degree they generated other, potentially long-term beneficial impacts. This paper explores these issues in the context of Liberia and the performance of the Cash for Work Temporary Employment Program (CfWTEP) funded by the World Bank through an emergency crisis facility in response to the 2007/2008 food crisis. Both quantitative and qualitative data are presented, focusing on the operational and policy experiences emerging from program implementation. This paper analyzes the context that led to the creation and implementation of the CfWTEP in Liberia, the nature and administrative arrangements for the program, and its operational performance. The objective is to share the lessons learned from evaluation findings so that they can be useful for implementing similar programs in the future in Liberia itself or in other countries. Findings from the analysis highlight the possibilities of implementing public works program in low capacity, post conflict setting and the scope for using the program as a springboard towards a broader and more comprehensive social safety net.

Portability of social benefits across professions and countries is an increasing concern for individuals and policy makers. Lacking or incomplete transfers of acquired social rights are feared to negatively impact individual labor market decisions as well as capacity to address social risks with consequences for economic and social outcomes. The paper gives a fresh and provocative look on the international perspective of the topic that has so far been dominated by social policy lawyers working within the framework of bilateral agreements; the input by economists has been very limited. It offers an analytical framework for portability analysis that suggests separating the risk pooling, (implicit or actual) pre-funding and redistributive elements in the benefit design and explores the proposed alternative approach for pensions and health care benefits. This promising approach may serve both as a substitute and complement to bi- and multilateral agreements.