Social protection and food security:
Two sides of the same coin?
Stephen Devereux
UNRISD, Geneva
19 March 2013
Food Security at IDS
1980s
Food Security at IDS
1980s
Food Security at IDS
1990s
Food Security at IDS
1990s
Social Protection at IDS
2000s
Social Protection at IDS
2000s
Social Protection at IDS
2000s
Social Protection at IDS
2010s
CFS & HLPE
The Committee on World Food
Security (CFS) was reformed after
the 2007/08 food price crisis.
The CFS constituted a High-Level
Panel of Experts (HLPE) to:
(i) assess and analyse the causes
of food and nutrition insecurity
(ii) provide advice to member
states on policy-relevant issues
(iii) help member states prioritise
future actions to address food
and nutrition insecurity.
HLPE Reports
2 reports each year.
“Evidence-based”, “advocacy tools”.
2011
1. Price volatility
2. Land tenure
2012
3. Climate change
4. Social protection
2013
5. Biofuels
6. Smallholder investment
What is “social protection for food security”?
Social protection is a range of policy instruments that address poverty
and vulnerability, through:
social assistance (e.g. cash transfers or food aid)
social insurance (e.g. unemployment benefits, pensions)
social inclusion (e.g. legislation on the human right to food).
Food insecurity is the inability to secure an adequate diet today,
and the risk of being unable to do so in the future.
“Social protection for food security” means using social protection
instruments, programmes and systems to promote the human right
to adequate food for all.
Rights to food and social protection
“The right to adequate food is realized when every man, woman and
child, alone or in community with others, has physical and economic
access at all times to adequate food or means for its procurement”.
“The right to social security includes the right to equal enjoyment of
adequate protection from social risks and contingencies. ... social
security should be treated as a social good, and not primarily as a
mere instrument of economic or financial policy.”
(UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights)
Social protection instruments for food security
Public works programmes
Temporary employment created in response to poverty and food
insecurity caused by unemployment or under-employment.
Twin-track: (1) cash or food wages reduce short-term food insecurity;
(2) investment in assets reduces chronic food insecurity
(e.g. feeder roads link isolated villages to markets).
Public works programmes
+ Public works target the poor – they are self-targeting.
+ Effective against shocks (e.g. floods and droughts) and seasonality,
enabling consumption smoothing by food insecure households.
+ Can create useful infrastructure (e.g. rural roads and irrigation).
Public works programmes
– Work requirement reduces the nutritional value of food or cash.
– Ethics of paying low wages or food rations for self-targeting?
– Heavy labour excludes women and labour-constrained poor.
– Assets created often don’t benefit the poor, are low quality,
and deteriorate if not maintained after the project ends.
Public works programmes
 Apply decent work principles to public works programmes.
 Pay local wage rates – use other methods for targeting.
 Complement public works with unconditional transfers for people with
no labour capacity; design lighter work (e.g. child-care) for women.
 Involve communities in project selection; add a maintenance budget.
Conditional cash transfers (CCTs)
CCTs give cash to mothers/ care-givers
in poor households, on condition they
send their children to school and clinic,
attend nutrition education, etc.
Twin-track:
(1) cash transfers reduce short-term food
insecurity
(2) investing in children’s human capital
breaks long-term intergenerational
transmission of malnutrition + poverty.
Conditional cash transfers (CCTs)
+ CCTs can improve food security –
quantity and quality of diets.
+ Higher levels of school attendance
and immunisation rates.
+ CCTs generate stronger political
support than unconditional grants.
Conditional cash transfers (CCTs)
– Conditionalities increase admin costs
(monitoring compliance) + complexity.
– Education and health services might
not be available, or low quality.
– Are conditions needed to achieve
desired outcomes?
– Reinforces stereotyped gender roles.
– From a human rights perspective, it is
defensible to attach conditions to
social transfers that should be a right?
Food price inflation in Ethiopia
1998–2008
Conditional cash transfers (CCTs)
– Conditionalities increase admin costs
(monitoring compliance) + complexity.
– Education and health services might
not be available, or low quality.
– Are conditions needed to achieve
desired outcomes?
– Reinforces stereotyped gender roles.
– From a human rights perspective, it is
defensible to attach conditions to
social transfers that should be a right?
– All cash transfers are vulnerable to
food price seasonality and inflation.
Index–linked cash transfers in Malawi, 2006
From instruments to systems
Social protection is popular in principle, but most social protection
instruments are controversial in practice.
Many criticisms of social protection programmes reflect bad design or
weak implementation – so they can be improved.
Selecting instruments should follow a food security analysis and a
needs assessment.
No single instrument is enough – a set of complementary interventions
plus linkages to other sectors are needed to address all food needs.
Accountability mechanisms are crucial for effective implementation:
– national level:
a “social contract”
– programme level: complaints mechanisms.
Social protection systems:
(1) Graduation
Bangladesh: Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction
Social protection systems:
(1) Graduation
Ethiopia: Food Security Programme
Social protection systems:
(2) Rights-based
Brazil
Adequate food is a right in the Constitution. “Organic Law for Food
and Nutrition Security” (2006) is implemented through programmes
like “Bolsa Familia” (CCT) and National School Meal Programme.
India
Rights-based approach – e.g. National Food Security Bill. Also, the
National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) guarantees
100 days of work at local minimum wage to all rural households, on
demand – a radical shift from “food-for-work” to the “right to work”.
South Africa
7 social grants underpinned by legislation. Civil society mobilised to
extend grants from 7 to 18 years. Child Support Grant reaches 10
million children. Girls in pensioner households are 3cm taller.
Social protection systems:
(3) Social Protection Floors
Objective is to deliver two guarantees:
(1) basic income security throughout the life cycle;
(2) universal access to healthcare.
Two dimensions:
(1) Horizontal
= universal
coverage;
(2) Vertical
= higher
standards of
provision.
Social protection systems:
(3) Social Protection Floors
CFS response to HLPE report
“The Committee ... suggested that the CFS Bureau, in consultation with
the Advisory Group and with the support of the Secretariat consider ...
further exploration of a way forward on integrating food security and
nutrition issues in social protection floors, in consultation with
Rome-based Agencies and relevant organisations and entities, such as
the High-Level Task Force on Food Security (HLTF), the International
Labour Organization (ILO), the World Bank”.
Selected Recommendations
Every country should put in place a social protection system that
contributes to the right to adequate food for all.
Social protection systems should follow a ‘twin-track’ strategy –
provide short-term assistance + support to long-term livelihoods.
Social protection must address vulnerability to poverty and hunger –
e.g. demand-driven; scalable (scales up rapidly when required).
Social protection for food security should be underpinned by the human
rights to food and social protection – e.g. with a ‘framework law’
and with accountability mechanisms.
Social protection for food security should support agricultural
livelihoods directly, because a large proportion of the world’s
food insecure people earn their living from agriculture.
Thank you!
www.fao.org/cfs/cfs-hlpe
www.ids.ac.uk/go/centreforsocialprotection