Publications

Social protection represents an important tool to mitigate poverty and to promote adequate living standards and conditions. In Latin America social protection has largely taken the form of large scale implementation of conditional cash transfers (CCTs). These transfers have proven successful in combating poverty and inequality across the continent, while facilitating empowerment by increasing access to services and supporting investment in education, health and nutrition. Chile Solidario is an avant garde CCT in the Latin American context, introducing innovative features which are aimed at specifically addressing the multidimensional nature of poverty, considered not only as a consequence of the lack of income, but also as a result of low levels of human and social capital, and the vulnerability of a household to shocks.

С конца 2007 года страны Центральной Азии перенесли два мощных потрясения, следовавших одно за другим: рост цен на продукты питания и топливо в 2007–2008 годах и мировой экономический и финансовый кризис, начавшийся в конце 2008 года. Кризис оказал непосредственное неблагоприятное воздействие на домохозяйства – как бедные, так и состоятельные. Многоаспектность кризиса и постоянно меняющаяся экономическая ситуация ставят под угрозу способность уязвимых домохозяйств справляться с ситуацией и поддерживать свой уровень жизни. Важную роль в реагировании на кризис играют программы социальной защиты.

This paper provides an overview of the social and economic vulnerabilities of households with children in the five Central Asian countries, and assesses the ability of national social protection systems to address these, with the main focus on the role of non-contributory cash transfers financed from general government revenues. The paper concludes that the existing social cash transfer systems are not effective in addressing the needs of poor and vulnerable children and families in Central Asia. Limited coverage together with limited funding reduces the potential poverty reduction impact of the programmes.

Burkina Faso’s hard earned economic gains in recent years have been eroded by the 2008-09 world financial and economic crisis. The country will particularly feel the effects of the world economic crisis due to its close links with the world economy. Most of the adverse effects are transmitted to households then passed onto children. The situation of children principally depends on the monetary and non-monetary wellbeing of their household. This, together with their greater vulnerability, means that children are at risk of suffering more, and for longer, from the impacts of the crisis. It is therefore crucial to understand and anticipate the effects that the crisis may have on children in Burkina Faso and to propose options for social protection to counter these effects. To this end, we propose a macro-micro economic approach. Macro-micro economic analysis uses a general calculable equilibrium (CGE) model to simulate the impacts of various transmission channels of the crisis to the Burkinabe economy. The results of these simulations are then used for the micro-econometric analysis, which integrates individual and household economic behaviour to evaluate the impact of the crisis on child welfare. A monetary transfer policy targeting poor children appears to be the most effective at reversing the negative effects of the crisis and returning to the trend that would have existed without the crisis. Such a policy, financed by external aid and with a budget of 1% of GDP, re-establishes the trend that monetary poverty would have followed in the absence of a crisis and even leads to a reduction in hunger. It also limits the crisis’ adverse effects on school enrolment, child labour and sick children’s access to modern health care services. A universal (non-targeted) variant of this transfer policy for 0-5 year-olds has similar results and is easier to enact. Policies which subsidize food and cereals, as well as monetary transfer policies for the Centre and Mouhoun regions (the areas most affected by the August-September 2009 floods) were also analyzed.

This study aims to evaluate the potential impacts of the 2008/09 global economic crisis on child poverty in Cameroon. It also explores the potential effects that policy responses to such a crisis could have on children. In order to do this, the study uses a macro-micro methodology. A dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) model is used to simulate various scenarios of the economic crisis together with policies which respond to the crisis, taking into account the different transmission channels of the global crisis to the Cameroonian economy. The results of the CGE model are then used in a micro-econometric module in order to evaluate the impacts of the simulated shocks on households in general and children in particular. Five dimensions of child poverty are examined: monetary poverty, caloric poverty, child school participation and child labour, and children’s access to health care services. The study shows that the crisis is projected to lower the real GDP growth rate by 1.3 percentage points in 2009, 0.9 in 2010 and 0.8 in 2011. Four alternative policy responses to the crisis are simulated: a reduction in the VAT levied on the sale of food products; elimination of customs tariffs applied on imports of food products; free access to school canteens for children under the age of 15 in districts where monetary poverty is higher than the national average; and granting cash transfers to poor children.

Le Burkina Faso à vu ses gains économiques, durement acquis ces dernières années, rongés par la crise financière et économique mondiale du 2008-09. Il subit particulièrement les conséquences de la crise économique mondiale vu le lien étroit qu’il entretient avec l’économie globale. La plupart des effets néfastes sont d’abord transmis aux ménages, puis répercutés aux enfants. Ainsi, la situation des enfants dépend principalement du bien-être monétaire et non monétaire de leurs ménages. Par conséquent et étant donné leur plus grande vulnérabilité, les enfants risquent de souffrir davantage et plus longtemps des impacts de la crise. Il est nécessaire et urgent de comprendre et anticiper les effets potentiels de la crise sur les enfants au Burkina Faso, et ensuite de proposer des options de protection sociale pour les contrer. A cette fin, nous proposons une approche macro-micro économique. L’analyse macro-économique fait recours à un modèle d’équilibre général calculable (MEGC) pour simuler l’impact des divers canaux de transmission du choc de crise à l’économie Burkinabé. Les résultats de ces simulations nourrissent ensuite une analyse micro-économétrique qui intègre les comportements microéconomiques des individus et des ménages pour évaluer l'impact de la crise sur le bien-être des enfants.

Cette étude vise, d’une part, à explorer les effets potentiels de la crise économique mondiale de 2008/09 sur la pauvreté des enfants au Cameroun. D’autre part, elle a pour but d’explorer les effets potentiels, sur cette même population-cible, des politiques qui seraient prises en réponse à ladite crise. Pour ce faire l’étude utilise une approche méthodologique top/down où, dans un premier temps, un modèle d’équilibre général calculable (EGC) de dynamique récursive est employé pour simuler les divers scénarios de crise économique et de politiques de réponse à la crise, en prenant en compte les différents canaux de transmission de la crise mondiale à l’économie camerounaise. Par la suite, les résultats produits par le modèle EGC sont utilisés dans un module micro-économétrique afin d'évaluer l’incidence des chocs simulés, sur les ménages en général et les enfants en particulier. Cinque dimensions de pauvreté des enfants sont examinées: la pauvreté monétaire; la pauvreté calorique; le taux de scolarité et/ou de participation des enfants au travail; enfin, l’accès des enfants aux soins de santé. Quatre politiques alternatives de réponse à cette crise sont simulées: une réduction de la TVA prélevée sur la vente des produits alimentaires; une suppression des droits de douane appliqués sur les importations de produits alimentaires; la gratuité de l’inscription des enfants de moins de 15 ans aux cantines scolaires dans les districts où le taux de pauvreté monétaire est supérieur au taux national; l’octroi de transferts en espèces aux ménages don’t les enfants sont pauvres. L’octroi des transferts en espèces se révèle comme étant la plus efficace des quatre politiques de réponse susmentionnées, bien que cette politique soit la plus inefficace de toutes pour améliorer le taux de croissance du PIB réel. Par ailleurs, les effets des transferts sur le plan de la scolarité, de la participation des enfants au travail et sur l’accès de ces derniers aux soins de santé sont globalement meilleurs bien que légers. Derrière la politique des transferts en espèces, celle de la subvention des cantines scolaires, avec pourtant un coût relativement bas, donne aussi une réponse considérablement bénéfique face à la crise, surtout sur le plan de la pauvreté calorique; tandis que les deux autres politiques s’avèrent inefficaces, quelle que soit la dimension de la pauvreté considérée.

Like many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Ghana is experiencing the impact of the global crisis and the uncertain economic outlook. Indeed, as Ghana’s economy is among the most open in Africa, it is expected that the country has been and will continue to be severely affected by the crisis, although strong export prices of its main exports (gold and cocoa) may at least partially counteract the effects associated with the crisis. The main goal of this paper is to understand the potential impacts of the 2008/9 global crisis on different dimensions of child poverty (monetary, hunger, school participation, child labour and access to health services) in Ghana and to support the policy-maker in designing the most appropriate policy response to counteract the negative effects of the crisis. As timely data are not available, a combined macro-micro economic model to predict the impact of the global crisis on children was developed. Simulations suggest that the financial crisis would increase monetary poverty and hunger across all regions of Ghana, eroding many of the gains made over the past few years. Indeed, in comparison with the year preceding the crisis, instead of a reduction of four percentage points in child monetary poverty in 2011 predicted in the absence of crisis, the simulations indicate a 6.6 percentage point increase, with a continuous increasing pattern over the period of study.

This paper outlines the methodology of a UNICEF research project on the impact of the global economic crisis on children in Western and Central Africa, which can also be applied to study the effects of other socio-economic shocks on households and particularly on children in developing countries. To understand the nature and the extent of the effects of a crisis in developing countries requires a rigorous analysis of the transmission mechanisms at both the macro and micro levels. This paper provides a tool to attempt to predict ex ante the impacts of the crisis, and possible policy responses, on households and their children. As timely data monitoring child well-being are not readily available to guide the rapid implementation of policies to protect children, a predictive model was developed that anticipates the impacts of the crisis on various essential dimensions of child wellbeing. Specifically, this paper proposes and discusses a combined macro-micro model following a top-down approach.