Inclusive social protection:

Making the Case

Alexandra is a Senior Social Policy Specialist at Development Pathways. She has 20 years of experience in social protection, poverty reduction, inequality, social rights, right to identity, governance and financial inclusion. Alexandra has provided high-level policy advice and conducted negotiations with government officials regarding social protection high-level design and policy implications in over 20 low- and middle-income countries. Since joining Pathways she has led a team designing the first cash transfer in Angola, a team supporting the implementation of social protection in Malawi, a team undertaking a Situational Analysis in Uganda, social protection trainings, and formed part of an Advisory Group to UNICEF’s Social Policy Team organising the Universal Child Benefit Conference.

Previously, she worked for a regional international organisation for the Americas region (OAS) for many years, where she headed the Social Protection Section, and led teams developing and designing a Social Protection Diploma Course, a regional social protection network, technical assistance and capacity-building for social development ministries, and providing technical advice to regional social policy inter-governmental bodies. Managed team responsible for providing support to the Working Group to Examine the National Periodic Reports Envisioned in the Protocol of San Salvador on economic, social and cultural rights and for instituting the first-ever round of reports on indicators of progress on social rights. She has also undertaken consultancies with UNICEF, and collaborated with key international actors in the social protection and poverty reduction field, including: UNRISD, ILO, OPHI, ECLAC, World Bank, Regional Working Group for the Social Protection Floor Initiative, Inter-American Development Bank, WFP, FAO, UNDP, and UN Women.

She authored and contributed with several publications including a Situational Analysis on income, nutrition and food insecurity in Karamoja, Equity and Social Inclusion, Multidimensional Poverty Indexes, a human-rights based approach to social protection, and has recently been working on conditions, dignity and the shame of poverty. More information on Alexandra's projects and publications is available here.

Richard Chirchir is the Senior Management Information Systems Specialist at Development Pathways with more than 16 years of developing and advising on social protection MISs, focused on multi-platform ICT solutions.

Richard has rich and unparalleled experience on MISs, having worked across Africa and Asia. In addition to designing and developing the SAGE MIS in Uganda, he has designed the MIS for Kenya’s four main social protection programmes, designed and implemented Kenya’s Single Registry; provided advice on Pakistan’s Benazir Income Support Programme and Indonesia’s Unified Beneficiary Registry, the two largest social registries in the world; reviewed and researched on China’s Integrated MIS; advised on MIS development in the Seychelles, Angola, Laos, Malawi, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Uzbekistan and Zambia; and developed MISs for cash transfer schemes in Liberia, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Angola, Uzbekistan and Malawi.

He also designed integrated Social Protection MISs in Rwanda, Uganda, Uzbekistan and Ethiopia. Richard has also co-authored leading publications on MISs used in developing countries including Good practice in the development of management information systems for social protection and Single Registries and Social Registries: Clarifying the Terminological Confusion, and teaches the information management for social protection module at Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences in Germany.

Bjorn Gelders is a Senior Social Policy Specialist and Economist at Development Pathways, specialising in child poverty, inequality, vulnerability and social protection.

His areas of expertise include mixed-methods research design, statistical analysis, microsimulation and policy analysis. Bjorn has worked in more than 20 countries with governments, the UN and development agencies across Africa, Asia and the Pacific. He is a member of the DFAT Poverty and Social Protection Expert Panel and is regularly contracted to provide inputs and advice to the DFAT-funded MAKOTA Indonesia; the DFID-funded Capacity and Policy Development Facility (CPDF) in Rwanda; and the DFID-funded Expanding Social Protection (ESP) programme in Uganda.

He has supported the design and implementation of large-scale household surveys in countries such as South Africa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Uganda, and Vanuatu; has extensive experience in analysing census and survey micro-data; and authored a significant number of reports on impact, the SDGs, and poverty, including a Quantitative Impact Analysis of Uganda's Senior Citizens Grant, the SDG Baseline Report on Children in Indonesia, Global Goals for Every Child: Progress and Disparities Among Children in South Africa and contributing to the Realisation of the Sustainable Development Goals By, For and With Persons with Disabilities: UN Flagship Report on Disability and Development 2018.

Bjorn is also well-versed in conducting microsimulations of the cost and impact of social protection programmes to support policy and decision-making; and regularly delivers workshops and trainings for both technical and non-technical audiences.

Matthew is a senior Consultant with more than a decade of experience in policy appraisal, options analysis, cost-benefit analysis, financial and investment options modelling.

He has wide experience of taking practical and realistic approaches to measuring value for money, coping with inevitable information gaps, and of interacting with ministers and senior officials on findings, within the UK and in developing country contexts. At the U.K's Department for International Development (DFID), he co-authored internationally-recognised value for money guidance on social protection programmes and on systems, social protection evaluation guidance and a cash transfers literature review of evidence of impact. He has authored a social protection review for the Government of Uganda, authored a social protection strategy and co-authored a social protection sector review and national investment plan for the Government of Kenya.

He has collaborated with governments and development partners in the design, implementation and monitoring of social protection programmes and systems in Tanzania, Nepal, Nigeria, Bangladesh and Ghana. Matthew led on economic growth and public financial management in DFID Nepal, on budget support in DFID Uganda, and on bringing tax into social protection planning for DFID HQ.

He has extensive experience in capacity-strengthening, and trained staff on social protection within DFID’s advisory cadres and staff within the Government of Kenya.

Stephen is currently a Senior Social Policy Specialist at Development Pathways, with a wealth of experience working on social protection. He previously worked for DFID as a Senior Social Development Adviser, including leading its Social Protection and Equity and Rights policy teams, has been Director of Policy and Communications at HelpAge International, where he led the organisation’s engagement on social protection, and used to be a Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh.

Over the past 20 years, Stephen has worked in over 30 countries across Africa, Asia, the Pacific and Latin America providing advice to governments and agencies on social protection. His experience ranges from advisory support in the development of national strategies and policies on social protection, leading the design of social protection schemes for development partners, undertaking reviews of social transfer programmes and national systems, research on a wide range of social protection issues – including on targeting, conditions, disability-inclusive social protection, ageing and social protection, universal child benefits, and the political economy of social protection – and has delivered many training courses on inclusive social protection.

Stephen has an extensive publishing record including: Leaving No-one Behind: Building Inclusive Social Protection Systems for Persons with Disabilities (2019); Hit and Miss: An Assessment of Targeting Effectiveness in Social Protection (2019); a chapter in Social Protection for Informal Workers (2016); The Effectiveness of the Graduation Approach (2017); Social Pensions and their Contribution to Economic Growth (2017); a series of UNESCAP e-learning policy guides including Why We Need Social Protection (2018); and Are You Designing Social Protection Schemes from a Citizenship or a Charity Paradigm? (2017) 

A comprehensive list of his publications can be found here. 

Shea has more than 15 years of experience in social policy and social protection, focusing in recent years on social insurance and its place within inclusive social protection systems in developing countries.

Shea has actively engaged in key social policy research and data processes at the UN. At UNRISD, she contributed to global research on financing social policy, social policy and migration, and a range of other topics. While at the International Social Security Association, she led research and production of Social Security Programs Throughout the World; engaged with the CEOs of national social security agencies on issues related to social security extension, administration and implementation; and contributed to UN-wide social protection inter-agency data collaboration through SPIAC-B. Shea has collaborated closely with the ILO, contributing to the World Social Protection Report 2017-19 and working to streamline global social security data collection and validation processes.

Previously, Shea was a research assistant to a former US Commissioner of Social Security and has 10 years of social policy research experience in Latin America. At Development Pathways, she leads the portfolio on the informal economy and multi-tiered social protection, and oversees multiple projects in Viet Nam, Uganda and West Africa.

Anna McCord is a research economist specialising in social protection design, analysis and impact, including the relationship between social protection and HIV/AIDS, with a particular interest in public works, labour markets and employment, as well as the political economy of social policy interventions.

Anna has experience throughout sub-Saharan Africa, as well as central, southern and south eastern Asia, working closely with a range of major donors, governments and non governmental agencies. This has included in recent years a baseline review of the impact of DFID Social Protection Policy Engagement in Uganda and contributing to the evaluation of the Hunger Safety Net Programme in Kenya as Expert Panel Advisor to DFID; and methodology development and analysis of the impact of IFAD policy engagement in South East Asia (India, Indonesia, Nepal & Viet Nam); and Technical Advisor and Report Author, Conference on Social Protection and Employment Promotion for DFAT.

She has provided training training to a range of bilateral donor staff, including to DFAT partners staff on social protection and active labour markets; EU international staff on social protection and public works; and DFID staff on active labour market policies. She has written extensively on the political economy of social protection and public works and labour market interventions, including the key book Public works and social protection in Southern Africa: Do public works work for the poor? and the book chapter 'The Role of Public Works in Addressing Poverty: Lessons from recent developments in Public Works Programming’, in Hulme and Lawson (eds) What Works for Africa's Poorest.

Ian Orton has worked for the Social Inclusion and Policy Section of UNICEF in New York since 2016. He is currently examining the case for universal child benefits as a major tool for reducing child poverty and ensuring the rights of children are realised.

Previously, he worked for BRAC in Bangladesh, and at the International Labour Organisation as a social protection analyst, producing research on social policy issues related to social protection. With an academic background in political philosophy, he gained his PhD in philosophy from the University of Northampton in 2006. He was co-editor of ‘Social Security Programs throughout the World’. He is also a qualified university lecturer and taught political theory and sociology at undergraduate level in the UK and Mexico. Currently at UNICEF, he provides support on:

•  The universal basic income and universalism in social policy.
•  The social and economic effects of social protection/social security.
•  Notably, he was one of the authors the UN’s 2011 Bachelet report: ‘Social Protection Floor for a Fair and Inclusive Globalization’ and co-led  the 2019 ‘Towards Universal Social Protection for Children: Achieving SDG 1.3 - ILO-UNICEF Joint Report on Social Protection for   Children’