Social protection
[5] One of the first examples of state-provided social protection can be traced to the Roman Emperor Trajan, who expanded a program for free grain to include more poor citizens of the empire.
Labor market interventions, consisting of both active and passive policies, provide protection for the poor who are capable of gaining employment.
Active policies are a way of reversing the negative effects of industrial restructuring in transition economies and to help integrate vulnerable people furthest from the labor markets.
A European Union-funded research as part of the DRIVERS project revealed a linear relationship between investments in national active labour market policies (specifically those directed towards integrating vulnerable groups into employment) and quality of work.
Labor market interventions work to integrate the different strategies to prevent and compensate occupational and social risks in the informal economy.
[25] However, proponents of the capabilities approach argue that income is easier to misrepresent, and moreover, fails to target the root causal factors of poverty.
[24] Hence, they recommend targeting a minimum level of basic capabilities that will impact quality of life, such as institutional improvements like health and education.
[26] Social protection is an expensive and difficult endeavor, by any means; the question remains how best to implement programs that effectively aid the people who need it the most.
It is a basic set of social rights derived from human right treaties, including access to essential services (such as health, education, housing, water and sanitation, and others, as defined nationally) and social transfers, in cash or in kind, to guarantee economic security, food security, adequate nutrition and access to essential services.
As a result of the extreme inequality, social security schemes have been developed and implemented, through private and public initiatives, since the 1970s in Europe and subsequently in other parts of the world.
In South Korea and Taiwan, the government provides extensive support for public programs, following the developmentalism model, in which social protection is seen as a tool to promote economic growth.
[30][31][32] In nations such as Tanzania and Ethiopia, governments struggle to provide adequate social protection, and citizens must instead depend on non-state actors and informal provisioning.
International donors and organizations have influenced social protection approaches in terms of both policy discourse and program design and implementation.
The main elements of the SRM framework are: The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) brings 30 democratic countries together to seek answers to common problems and coordinate domestic and international policies.
The DAC-POVNET focuses on the following areas: The International Labour Organization, which covers both issues of social security and labor protection, has been the United Nations agency responsible for setting norms and standards at work.
