The Social Protection Indicator for the Pacific: Tracking Developments in Social Protection

By Asian Development Bank

This report presents the analysis of 2018 data on social protection measures in Asian Development Bank’s 14 Pacific developing member countries. It uses the Asian Development Bank’s Social Protection Indicator to assess the level of resources invested in social protection, extent of coverage, and benefit levels of social protection programs. Further data disaggregation provides the distribution of social protection expenditures in terms of poverty, gender, and for people with disabilities. The report identifies measures adopted in response to the coronavirus disease pandemic and outlines the future directions for social protection in the Pacific region.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Asian Development Bank
• Release date: Dec 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9789292699963

Book preview

THE SOCIAL PROTECTION INDICATOR FOR THE PACIFIC

TRACKING DEVELOPMENTS IN SOCIAL PROTECTION

DECEMBER 2022

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 IGO license (CC BY 3.0 IGO)

© 2022 Asian Development Bank

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Some rights reserved. Published in 2022.

ISBN 978-92-9269-995-6 (print); 978-92-9269-996-3 (electronic); 978-92-9269-997-0 (ebook)

Publication Stock No. SGP220599-2

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22617/SGP220599-2

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Cover design by Sajid Chowdhury.

Contents

Tables, Figures, and Boxes

Foreword

Robust social protection systems are essential to fostering more inclusive and sustainable growth across Asia and the Pacific. In the Pacific island countries, where exposure and vulnerability to external shocks are among the highest in the world, social protection systems are all the more critical for strengthening community resilience and enabling individuals to thrive.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) recognizes the central role of social protection in preparing for and responding to shocks, and emphasizes social protection systems as a key vehicle for achieving its strategic priority of addressing remaining poverty and reducing inequalities. Recognizing the need for evidence-based planning, ADB and its partners developed the Social Protection Indicator (SPI) as the first comprehensive and quantitative measure of social protection systems in Asia and the Pacific.

This report describes the SPI for ADB’s 14 Pacific developing member countries (DMCs), calculated for 2018. It uses the SPI measure to assess the level of resources invested in social protection, as well as the value of benefits, coverage, and the distribution of expenditures in terms of poverty, gender, and disability. This report is the fourth in a series of Pacific regional SPI studies, published in 2012, 2016, and 2019. Building on the previous body of work, this report examines progress on social protection at the country and regional levels between 2009 and 2018, and captures the more recent lessons learned during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic—all in support of fostering a more inclusive and resilient Pacific community.

The report advances several findings that can be used to underpin forward planning and implementation of social protection schemes across the region. Overall, the report considers how social protection in the Pacific can be made more inclusive, and how social protection can contribute to more resilient societies and economies in each of the Pacific DMCs. We hope that the SPI series continues to provide meaningful insights to governments and development partners in the region, and that the findings of this report will contribute to increasingly impactful social protection systems in each of the Pacific DMCs.

We thank everyone who contributed to this report, and we look forward to further engagement with social protection practitioners, advocates, and decision-makers across Asia and the Pacific in the years to come.

Leah Gutierrez

Director General

Pacific Department

Asian Development Bank

Bruno Carrasco

Director General concurrently Chief Compliance Officer

Sustainable Development and Climate Change Department

Asian Development Bank

Abbreviations

Acknowledgments

This publication, Social Protection Indicator for the Pacific: Tracking Developments in Social Protection, is a collaboration between the Sustainable Development and Climate Change Department (SDCC) and the Pacific Department of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), led by Michiel Van der Auwera, former senior social development specialist, SDCC, and co-led by Ninebeth Carandang, principal social development specialist, Pacific Department, under the overall guidance of Wendy Walker, chief of the Social Development Thematic Group, SDCC.

The main chapters on the social protection indicator were written by Margaret Chung, ADB consultant for the Pacific report. This report contains special chapters on social protection for people with disabilities prepared by Joanna Rogers, ADB consultant on disability inclusion; on the socioeconomic impacts of and social protection responses to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) written by Judy Otto, ADB consultant on the Pacific Islands; and a forward-looking chapter on the direction of social protection in the Pacific penned by Michael Samson, director at the Economic Policy and Research Institute. Flordeliza C. Huelgas, ADB consultant on social protection, provided technical guidance to review and consolidate data from 14 Pacific countries’ calculations and reports prepared by national researchers Hillary Gorman (Cook Islands), Margaret Chung (Fiji), Johnny Hadley (Federated States of Micronesia), Teekoa Luta (Kiribati), Ramrakha Detenamo (Nauru), Vanessa Marsh (Niue), Judy Otto (Palau), Theodore Takpe (Papua New Guinea), Yolanda Elanzo (Marshall Islands), Sosefina Talauta-Tualaulelei (Samoa), Jaysie Boape (Solomon Islands), Joyce Mafi (Tonga), Filiga Nelu (Tuvalu), and Christy Haruel and Carol Dover (Vanuatu). These reports are available on request from ADB.

Special thanks to David Abbott, manager of data analysis and dissemination at the Statistics for Development Division of the Pacific Community, for providing guidance on country data collection and analysis. Babken Babajanian, ADB consultant, provided substantive inputs for finalizing the report.

The publication benefited from comments received from the Pacific Island countries’