ABSTRACT
Social protection measures require sustainable financing – creating and maintaining adequate fiscal space at the national level. Good governance of social protection at all stages – planning policies, policy reforms, and implementation – requires continuous monitoring of its performance and finances, including long-term projections and simulations of cost and benefits of different social protection programs and overall social protection systems. These projections and simulations should take into account demographic trends, including demographic ageing. However, one has also to include – and it is much more challenging methodologically – economic impacts of social protection in the longer term on human capital, productivity, and growth. There is need go beyond pure static accounting when assessing financial sustainability of public expenditure; the chapter discusses various challenges associated with incorporating projection results into inter-temporal government accounts.
