Social Protection in Developing Countries

Providing universal access to social protection and health systems for all members of society, including the poor and vulnerable, is increasingly considered crucial to international development debates. This is the first book to explore from an interdisciplinary and global perspective the reforms of social protection systems introduced in recent years by many governments of low and middle-income countries.

Although a growing body of literature has been concerned with the design and impact of social protection, less attention has been directed towards analyzing and explaining these reform processes themselves. Through case studies of African, Asian, and Latin American countries, this book examines the ‘global phenomenon’ of recent social protection reforms in low and middle-income areas, and how it differs across countries both in terms of scope and speed of institutional change. Exploring the major domestic and international factors affecting the political feasibility of social protection reform, the book outlines the successes and failures of recent reform initiatives.

This invaluable book combines contributions from both academics and practitioner experts to give students, researchers and practitioners in the fields of social security, economics, law and political science an in-depth understanding of political reform processes in developing countries.

Katja Bender is Professor for Economic and Social Development at the International Centre for Sustainable Development, Bonn-Rhine-Sieg University of Applied Sciences, Germany.

Markus Kaltenborn is Professor at the Faculty of Law and Director of the Institute of Development Research and Development Politics, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany.

Christian Pfleiderer is a project leader and head of the sector initiative Development and Integration of Social Protection Systems at the sustainable development specialist Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, Germany.