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Rethinking Poverty Reduction Strategies: the Role of Social Policy

On 24 June 2008, as part of the EADI 12th General Conference, the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) will convene a workshop entitled "Rethinking Poverty Reduction Strategies: the Role of Social Policy". This workshop will provide an important input to the conference by concentrating on the legitimate role of the state in social policy, particularly for poverty reduction.

Poverty reduction is currently high on the agenda of international development. There are concerns, however, that many countries will be unable to make meaningful dents in their poverty figures. Critics affirm that the deflationary adjustment model that gained prominence in the 1980s still imposes constraints on the types of anti-poverty strategies that countries can adopt. Moreover, lessons have not been drawn from the experiences of late industrializers that have been successful in reducing poverty in very short periods. These countries did not focus on poverty reduction in particular, but on long-term processes of structural transformation that included employment expansion and/or the pursuit of universalist social policies.

The experience of the now developed countries demonstrates the critical role of social transfers for reducing poverty, where social-democratic models have been the most successful at doing so. Yet, the role of social protection goes beyond risk management and poverty reduction. A broad approach takes into account that social policy has the potential to contribute to economic development, (gender-)equality and equity, democratization and political legitimation, as well as social cohesion. Social policy is concerned with redistribution, production, reproduction and protection and works in tandem with economic policy in pursuit of national, social and economic goals. Indeed, UNRISD research shows that for social polices to be inclusive and equitable, the various roles of social policy must be equally represented in a national social policy strategy. In particular, pursuit of the productive and protective objectives of social policy should not come at the expense of the redistributive or reproductive ones.

The following members of UNRISD's research team will present findings from past and ongoing research on social policy and poverty reduction:
Related web-links:

UNRISD Poverty project: www.unrisd.org/research/poverty
Social Policy Programme: www.unrisd.org/research/socialpolicy and www.unrisd.org/research/spd

Contact:

United Nations Research Institute
for Social Development (UNRISD)
Palais des Nations
CH-1211 Geneva 10
Switzerland


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