Summary assignment

Social protection historical involved traditional welfare instruments like labour, social insurance and provision of social assistances in welfare states. The onset of globalization causes a rethink of approach to social protection especially for those in the developing countries after the Asian financial crisis.
This paper examines social protection from the perspective of social risk management approach were the notion of poverty reduction is seen through the lens of vulnerability of the poor and its instrumentalities. Social risk management approach involves four main goals; poverty as in vulnerability of the poor, consumption smoothing, enhancing equity and catalyst for economic development.
Firstly, vulnerability as defined by Holzmann and Jorgensen (1999) is ‘‘risk of economic units to fall below the poverty line or for those below the poverty line, to remain in or fall further” (p.6). However, it is anticipated that better designed intervention will prevent this as a result of in-depth understanding of poverty through vulnerability compared to past efforts were poverty line was the indicator of status.
The second approach is consumption smoothing were access to income by the vulnerable is uncertain, appropriate instruments are not available and social risk management is seen to provide that mechanism to enable the poor to save or dis-save to cushion effects of shock and achieving a welfare smoothing consumption path.
The third definition equates vulnerability with the enhancing equity as a result of more equitable welfare distribution across individuals (Holzmann & Jorgensen 1999). Furthermore, he states that better risk management can enhance the welfare distribution and societal welfare without actually re-distributing income. Lower income earners don’t have access to risk instruments thus improve risk management will alleviate