Social protection policies in developing countries: estimating the financial impact of new decisions

Abstract

This article is based on the need to round out social benefits in developing countries with non-contributive schemes, to focus social public spending and to ensure the financial sustainability of any measures adopted. A simple tool is described for estimating the financial impact of potential measures in the field of social protection policies for public sector decision-makers. The decomposition of public spending on social benefits into four factors—two of which can be controlled by the public administration and could therefore be seen as typical instruments of a certain kind of social protection policy—is the starting point for the new model, which was tested in Colombia.