Open Access

The Participation Act, introduced in the Netherlands in 2015, puts into practice the idea that every individual has to make a contribution in a participatory society. The Act includes aspects of income support, compulsory activities in return for benefits, and labour market reintegration. Drawing on 45 interviews, we provide insights into interactions between the individual financial and social situation, an individual’s position in society, and reintegration activities. The narratives show the fundamental need for individual freedom and societal meaning, recognition, and appreciation, as well as the complex circumstances in which social assistance recipients make decisions. Conflicts between those needs and the Act lead to the question of how personal and societal objectives can be reconciled.

This policy brief is part of a wider research project entitled ‘Building the Economic Case for Investments in Social Protection’. The research aims at demonstrating the potential impacts of social protection on inclusive growth. The project is a collaborative effort between the Maastricht Graduate School of Governance at the University of Maastricht and United Nations University-MERIT, NL; the Global Development Institute at the University of Manchester, UK; the School of Social Science at the University of Makerere, Uganda; and the Expanding Social Protection Programme of the Ugandan Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development. This project is part of the research agenda of the Knowledge Platform Inclusive Development Policies and funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands through the NWO-WOTRO programme.

This policy brief investigates the costs of child poverty in the Balkans, including deprivation in terms of education, health, and social mobility. It then lays out the potential of social protection, most notably in terms of building resilence and fostering development. Set against recent case studies from around the world, including Cambodia and Uganda, the brief gives policy recommendations on various critical issues including transfer schemes, transformative measures, and (alternative) care for children with disabilities.

Policy analysis is the cornerstone of evidence-based policy making.1 It identifies the problems, informs programme design, supports the monitoring of policy implementation and is needed to evaluate programme impacts (Scott 2005). Rigorous and credible policy evidence is necessary to ensure the transparency and accountability of policy decisions, to secure political and public support and, hence, the allocation of financial resources. Sound policy analysis helps design effective and efficient programmes, thereby maximizing programme impact.

Do remittances and social assistance transfers have different impacts on household’s expenditure patterns? While two separate strands of literature have looked at how social assistance or remittances have been spent, few studies have compared them directly. Using data from a household survey conducted in Moldova in 2011, this paper assesses the impact both types of transfers have on household expenditure patterns. Contrary to the common assumption that money is fungible, we find that social assistance and remittances have different impacts on expenditure patterns (having controlled for potential endogeneity). In other words, where the income comes from can determine how it is spent. As such, different sources of income may have different poverty impacts. In our sample, the two types of transfers are received by different, but slightly overlapping population groups. The fact that the two transfers are spent in different ways means that, to some extent, social assistance and remittances are complements rather than substitutes.