Over 1.2 billion people worldwide live on less than $1/ day; an estimated 900 million people will still be living in poverty even if the Millennium Development Goals are reached. In other words, there are very large numbers of chronically and severely poor people who are not being reached by current development policies, and whose situation is often deteriorating in comparison even with other poor people.

Social protection policies aim to address both severe and long-term poverty, and to reduce vulnerability, and are thus one of the most significant areas of policy for chronically and severely poor people. In other words, good social protection addresses both factors that push people into poverty and those which keep them there. It can help both poor people and countries move out of ‘low equilibrium poverty traps’, where they are producing low-value added products
with limited returns.

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Author: Rachel Marcus