ABSTRACT
Social security has historically been associated with poverty alleviation and prevention. Different forms of social security such as social assistance, social insurance, employer mandates and social allowances have in their different ways addressed the problem. Social assistance has been extensively used over the years to alleviate poverty among people in need, and social insurance has prevented workers from falling into poverty when faced with unemployment, illness, disability and retirement. Employer mandates have a similar function but place the obligation to pay benefits on employers. Social allowances have been used in many countries to augment the incomes of large families. However, despite these efforts, social security has not always achieved the goal of significantly reducing poverty. Inadequate funding, administrative difficulties and other problems have often limited the effectiveness of these programmes. In addition, they were sometimes introduced for political, economic or cultural reasons and obviously, played a minimal antipoverty role.
