Realizing the Promise of Social Assistance : Cambodia Policy Note

Zambra, Claudia

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: SOCIAL ASSISTANCE PROGRAM;    SOCIAL PROTECTION;    CONDITIONAL CASH TRANSFERS;    MATERNAL HEALTH;    CHILD HEALTH;   

RP-ID  :  128268

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Although Cambodia has become one of theworld’s leaders in poverty reduction, two-thirds of itspopulation remains poor or economically vulnerable, with alarge number of households moving in and out of poverty.Cambodian households are exposed to a range of shocks thatcan have devastating costs for the poor and vulnerable.Negative coping strategies to manage shocks can put poor oreconomically insecure households at risk of a return to ordeepened poverty. Formal social protection in Cambodia isonly incipient, with low levels of spending compared toother countries, particularly for social assistance. Mostsocial protection spending in Cambodia goes towardretirement benefits for civil servants through the NationalSocial Security Fund for Civil Servants (NSSF-C) and theNational Fund for Veterans (NFV), neither of which have beencontributory to date and are thus entirely funded throughgeneral revenues. Social assistance spending is much lowerand comprises several small, fragmented programs. TheGovernment has recently signaled its willingness to scale upsocial assistance through its approval of the NationalSocial Protection Policy Framework (NSPPF), which lays outambitious reforms. The NSPPF, approved in 2017, provides theframework for an integrated social protection system.Guidance will be provided by a National Social ProtectionCouncil (NSPC) under the overall direction of the Ministryof Economy and Finance (MEF), with distinct sub-bodies forsocial insurance and social assistance. This note presentspolicy options for ensuring the feasibility of theinstitutional and programmatic rollout of social assistancereforms envisaged in the NSPPF. To realize the goals of theNSPPF, a clear vision on prioritization and sequencing of SAreforms will be critical. The path from incipient andfragmented social assistance systems is one that has beentrodden by many developing countries in recent years, andthose experiences can provide important lessons for Cambodiain this process. This policy note draws from these lessonswhile taking into account Cambodia’s ongoing socialassistance programs, institutional frameworks, and deliverysystems. It utilizes the World Bank’s ASPIRE database,program documents, an assessment of Cambodia’s socialassistance programs in the OECD’s 2017 Social ProtectionSystem Review of Cambodia, and country data.