Entering the City : Emerging Evidence and Practices with Safety Nets in Urban Areas
Most safety net programs in low and middle-income countries have hitherto been conceived for rural areas. Yet as the global urban population increases and poverty urbanizes, it becomes of utmost importance to understand how to make safety nets work...
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| Language: | English en_US |
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2015
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2015/07/24841441/entering-city-emerging-evidence-practices-safety-nets-urban-areas http://hdl.handle.net/10986/22482 |
| Summary: | Most safety net programs in low and
middle-income countries have hitherto been conceived for
rural areas. Yet as the global urban population increases
and poverty urbanizes, it becomes of utmost importance to
understand how to make safety nets work in urban settings.
This paper discusses the process of urbanization, the
peculiar features of urban poverty, and emerging experiences
with urban safety net programs in dozens of countries. It
does so by reviewing multidisciplinary literature, examining
household survey data, and presenting a compilation of case
studies from a ‘first generation’ of programs. The paper
finds that urban areas pose fundamentally different sets of
opportunities and challenges for social protection, and that
safety net programs are at the very beginning of a process
of urban adaptation. The mixed-performance and preliminary
nature of the experiences suggest putting a premium on
learning and evidence-generation. This might include
revisiting some key design choices and better connecting
safety nets to spatial, economic and social services agendas
compelling to urban areas. |
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