Individual Country Responses and Prospects

As the details of individual country responses to the global crisis will vary, this chapter is designed to provide more details regarding individual country prospects. As a preamble, we have assembled a couple of tables giving details of the amount of social protection that is provided in the Asian economies. Expenditure in Table 10.1 is comparable to SPEXP in Table 9.6. The Impact variable in Table 10.1 is comparable to SPIMP in Table 9.6. There are some differences between figures in these two tables. This is because the two studies used different sampling techniques and methodologies We will refer to these two tables in the country reports that follow. Briefly we note here that there are wide variations in the social protection coverage in Asian countries. Nepal and Pakistan rank at the bottom, both countries with low levels of Coverage/SPDIST and Impact SPIMP. Bangladesh, China, Sri Lanka and Vietnam rank high both in Impact and Coverage. Higher levels of Expenditure/SPEXP do not necessarily translate into high impact on the poor as some social programs are either directed to the non-poor or diverted to other groups. Table 10.1 Social protection indicators by country in percent for selected Asian economies Country Expenditure Coverage Target Impact Bangladesh 3.8 10.2 34 15 Indonesia 1.9 34.6 73 11 Nepal 2.2 10.5 26 7 Pakistan 2.0 6.5 5 2 Vietnam 3.5 3.5 52 12 Note: Expenditure on all social projection programs as a percentage of GDP; Coverage as percentage of reference population of total poor; poverty target is percentage of poor receiving some social protection benefits; impact is the proportion of the poor who benefit from social protection measured as a percentage of the national poverty line. Source: Baulch et al, 2006