Public works and employment programmes have long been considered a staple of social assistance. For the most part, though, they have been designed as short-term ?safety nets?. While, in some cases, the focus has also been on reducing poverty or addressing structural unemployment challenges, their implementation has seldom been on a scale that would make a dent in structural poverty. The fact that large scale programmes such as India?s National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), which was initiated prior to the recent economic crisis, could also be effective in responding speedily to and mitigating the effects of the crisis has elicited interest in such policies as a component of inclusive growth paths. In making the case for a longer-term development approach, the paper points out that such an approach would not only allow these programmes to act as shock absorbers without being ?too little, too late? but would also enable the state to strengthen its capacities to provide support to livelihood strategies of the poor through addressing critical public goods and service deficits while creating jobs. In this context, the paper assesses the desirability and feasibility of adopting a universal or a partial Employment Guarantee (EG) to make such programmes a more stable complement to market-driven employment creation in situations where levels of poverty, in particular, working poverty, and underemployment are high. The paper also explores the complementarities and interactions with various social assistance and cash transfer programmes with a view to fostering a more comprehensive approach to social protection for the poor. The paper concludes with a section on implementation issues with a view to strengthening learning on how to plan, design and implement long-term and Employment Guarantee types of public employment programmes. (?)

https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/71813/1/637804341.pdf

Public works and employment programmes: Towards a long-term development approach

Caring for children and other dependents is crucial to human well-being, and to social and economic development. Yet, most national and international policymakers appear persistently blind to this fact, as has been highlighted by the recent global economic crisis. They need to recognise and value care work if they are to support vulnerable families from the effects of economic downturn. The 2008–2009 global economic crisis has served to underscore the potential effects of inadequate attention to care economy dynamics, with serious risks to children's education, development, health and protection already evident. Nevertheless, economic recovery measures continue to provide little space or funding for protective or remedial measures. We argue that gender and care-sensitive social protection measures are a good means by which to support the position of carers and to create better visibility within policy circles, while also demonstrating considerable returns for human well-being and broader long-term economi...

Crisis, care and childhood: the impact of economic crisis on care work in poor households in the developing world

The global financial crisis was triggered by the bursting of the United States housing bubble in 2007 and the reverberations of this are now being felt throughout the world. The crisis was greatly exacerbated by the behaviour of banks, which has inevitably made the position of any country that has borrowed money worse off. Sub-Saharan Africa was largely insulated from the initial stages of the financial crisis as the majority of the countries in the region are de-linked from the international financial markets. However, with the worsening of the global financial and economic crisis, the region as a whole has now been exposed to the downturn, and growth estimates have been continually lowered from 5 percent in 2008 to 1.7 percent in April 2009 (IMF, 2009). 
Many Sub-Saharan African countries are dependent on foreign finance inflows and are even more dependent on commodity based export growth (Naude, 2009). This has left them particularly exposed to shocks and World Bank economists are warning that although Africa is the least integrated region, it could actually be the worst hit (Devarajan, 2009a). Given that Africa is already the most conflict ridden continent in the world, an exacerbation of resource scarcity could increase conflict across the continent. 
Emerging markets (e.g. South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya) were hit first through their stock exchanges and financial links with other regions in the world; but the crisis has now affected the region's lower income countries (LICs) through indirect channels and because they are reliant on the stronger regional economies for trade and remittances. 
In addition to financial shocks, Sub-Saharan Africa is also reeling from the food and fuel price shocks of 2007-08. Many countries in the region are already making unsatisfactory progress in their efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals; this “triple jeopardy” has thrown millions of households into poverty and will further hinder progress (World Bank, 2009).

https://www.gsdrc.org/docs/open/eirs6.pdf

The Impact of the Financial Crisis on Conflict and State Fragility in Sub-Saharan Africa

The notion of failed state is based on culturally, historically and ideologically slanted lenses and tends to rank post-colonial societies at the lower end of the Failed State Index (FSI). Likewise, the Social Protection Index (SPI) uses neoliberal and Western-based variables and tends to disadvantage subaltern post-colonial communities as in the Pacific. This article reverses this trend by arguing for a re-examination of the factors which shape the resilience and adaptability of local communities, something which has always been ignored by mainstream classificatory schemas such as the FSI and SPI. To this end, the article examines the indigenous and local human security and social protection systems in the Pacific and how these provide support mechanisms for community resilience and adaptation in the face of a predatory neoliberal onslaught and globalisation. It focuses on kinship, reciprocity, communal obligation and communal labour as examples of social protection mechanisms in four case studies—Fiji, Samoa, Kiribati and Vanuatu. Of significance here is the role of critical and progressive journalists and media in deconstructing the ideological and cultural bias embedded in these discourses.

/pdf/failed-or-resilient-subaltern-communities-pacific-indigenous-4js9nt18x0.pdf

'Failed' or resilient subaltern communities?: Pacific indigenous social protection systems in a neoliberal world

COVID-19 has forced us to think critically about alternative global and local response strategies to the unprecedented devastation. Some of the most infected groups are Pacific communities and this...

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03036758.2020.1861033

Integrated social protection and COVID-19: rethinking Pacific community responses in Aotearoa

http://r4d.dfid.gov.uk/PDF/Outputs/Misc_EcoDev/IFPB_FinCrisis7_4_FINAL.pdf

M. Davies

Papers

Social Protection Responses to the Financial Crisis: What do we Know?