ABSTRACT
Introduction Social protection has been increasingly viewed as an important tool for addressing poverty, vulnerability, inequality and social exclusion. It can play a vital role in accelerating progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by ensuring access to quality education, healthcare services, nutrition and income security. Evidence from several countries, such as Mexico and Brazil, has shown that social protection programmes like cash transfers have contributed to the achievement of the MDGs (UNICEF, 2010; Fiszbein, Kanbur and Yemtsov, 2013). Social protection has also been recognised as a key element that needs to be included in the post-2015 development agenda (UNICEF, 2010; ECA et al., 2012; HLP, 2013). Yet, approximately 80 per cent of the world’s population lack access to comprehensive social protection (ECA et al., 2012).
