Successes in social protection: what lessons can be learned?

ABSTRACT The recent food, fuel and financial crises have triggered innovation in social protection programmes around the world. Existing evidence suggests that such programmes both protect people from shocks and enable them to participate in economic growth. This paper explores lessons learned in social protection initiatives across countries and contexts, and identifies a set of ‘success conditions’ for social protection programmes, focusing mainly on sub-Saharan Africa. Ghana’s national health insurance illustrates well three key features of an enabling environment: political commitment at the top; high administrative capacity; and financial sustainability and commitment to programme spending controls. To influence policy, these lessons need specification to the given context.