Social Protection

Social Protection is gaining currency in developing countries with special focus on its role in
transforming household relations having gender dimensions. Despite the fact that there is
widespread recognition that men and women are affected differently by same risks or different
risks have different impacts on men and women, scant attention has been given to gendered
dimension of design and policies of social protection. Most of the Social Protection Programs
have totally ignored the gender dimension and some others take it enough to just target
women as primary beneficiaries. Resultantly, little or no impact has been noticed on the
empowerment of women through social protection policies. Some even argue that cash
transfer program under social protection policies may strengthen the traditional roles of
women in the households.
Devereux and Sabates Wheeler(2004) in their conceptual framework of social protection argue
that besides being preventive(providing relief),protective(averting risk)and
promotive(increasing capabilities), the social protection policies should also be transformative.
The transformation role of social protection policies is most significant of all as it can empower
women to use their economic and social potential to better their lives and also productively
contribute to societies. Women are, in most cases, facing extreme inequality both at home and
in wages they earn at the work place. They are considered fit only for certain kind of roles
determined for them by the societal norms. They face discrimination in getting work choice and
also huge differences in wages they earn. In Indonesia, for instance, rubber extraction is
considered to be a male work while rice cultivation is taken as female work. This is no
coincidence, as is often quoted that poverty has womens face. An oft-quoted statistics is that
women constitute 70% of the world poor. The reasons are not far to seek as women are mostly
ignored in social protection policies.
A wider look at the popular on-going social protection programs in developing countries
indicate that most programs have ignored gender dimension in their design and
implementation while some others have achieved milestone progress in empowering women.
Perus Program Juntos is one such example as it has particularly focused on women with the
specific objective to empower them. Bangladeshs CFPR (Countering Frontiers of Poverty) is
other impressive example of empowering women by increasing their productive powers
through asset transfers. This program has targeted 2,70,000 women. On the other side,
Indonesia,Ethopia, Mexico and Vietnam have totally ignored the gender dimension. Some
others have partially focused on women as beneficiaries i.e Mahathama Ghandhi National Rural
Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) that targets 45 million people or Vietnams NPPR
(National Program for Poverty Reduction) that targets 7.3 million people. Ghanas program
LEAP (Livelihood Empowerment against Poverty) is totally gender neutral in its approach. This
program targets 3, 70,000 people. Pakistans Benazir Income Support Program (BISP) is a
remarkable exception as it targets women as its primary beneficiaries. Amongst all these
programs , Perus Juntos has been reported to have significant impact on the empowerment of
women. Others, such as BISP of Pakistan seem to have given women some voice and role in the
poor household. The underlying problem with all social protection policies is that they focus
mainly on economic risks and shocks to consumption patterns and ignore social risks such as
inequality in resources and powers in the household. Women who disproportionately bear the
burden of sickness and other economic shocks besides exposure to social risks need to be
especially focused in social protection policies.