Transcript HelpAge International: Global Social Floor

Global Social Floor: a
Universal Social Pension
Silvia Stefanoni
Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Programmes
HelpAge International
Social security: a right and
a public service
 Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
Art 22: Everyone …… has a right to social
security
Art 25: Everyone has the right to a standard
of living adequate for health and wellbeing of himself and his family
Art 25: …and the right to security in the
event of….old age
Poverty reduction in OECD countries
40
% of Population
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
France
Germany
Italy
Netherlands
Pre-tax/transfer
Sweden
Post-tax/transfer
UK
US
Challenging the
development paradigm
 Little success in reaching MDG 1 – income
poverty and hunger
 In a market economy, families need cash to live
 Development practitioners – and governments –
promote work (eg. livelihoods programmes;
micro-credit)
 But, many cannot work or get enough income
 Global social floor provides a means of
achieving MDG 1 through provision of
comprehensive social security to complement
work
Social Security – an
essential public service
 Four essential public services:
Health
Education
Safe water and sanitation
Social security
A system of regular and predictable cash transfers
aimed at tackling poverty and promoting economic
growth
Coverage of contributory
pensions
Coverage of social
pensions
Impact of social pensions
on poverty in South Africa
32%
All
households
21%
Households
including
older people
71%
54%
Households
only with
older people
98%
96%
0%
20%
Poverty gap reduction
40%
60%
80%
100%
Destitution gap reduction
Impact of social pension in
Mauritius
1 older person and mult iple
younger people
30%
6%
1 older person and a
younger couple
34%
8%
64%
Older couples
19%
54%
Single older people
34%
0%
P overt y rat e wit h pension
20%
40%
60%
80%
P overt y rat e wit hout pension
Investment in children
 Nutrition:
Pensions associated with a 3-4cm increase in
height among children in South Africa
 Education:
South Africa pension led to 8% increase in
enrolment among poorest 20% of children
Similar impact in Brazil among girls aged 1214
Why universal social
pensions?
 Poverty targeting is difficult in developed countries –


large inclusion and exclusion errors
Administratively more complicated and expensive
In developing countries, we do not know how to target –
therefore, errors will be much greater
 Benefits often captured by the better-off (eg. India and
Bangladesh)
 Community targeting causes discord in communities
 Targeted social pensions will be denounced as corrupt
 Poverty targeting will create disincentives to save and


contribute to other pension schemes
Greater political acceptability for universal benefits
Amartya Sen: “A benefit for the poor is a poor benefit”
Income from Pensions
World Bank model of
pension system
Private
Pensions
Social
Insurance
Social
Pensions
0Rich
Poor100
Income from Pensions
Model of the pension
system
Private
Pensions
Social
Insurance
Social
Pensions
0Rich
100
Poor
Cost of social pensions as percentage of GDP
2
1.8
1.6
% of GDP
1.4
1.2
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
Botswana
Lesotho
Mauritius
Namibia
South Africa
India
Bangladesh
Pakistan
Nepal
Social pensions are part of
a broader package



We need to look at the whole life cycle and associated vulnerabilities
Social pensions need to complement child benefits, disability
benefits, support for the unemployed and free access to health
services
Politically, however, social pensions are likely to be the easiest to
introduce
 Example of southern Africa – initial political support for social pensions
 Happens where governments have more meaningful accountability to
citizens
 Where governments are accountable to donors, there is a preference
for targeted social assistance programmes (eg. Zambia, Malawi,
Uganda, Kyrgyzstan) which are driven by northern consultants
 Global Social Floor need to challenge this approach and advocate for
universal approaches