1. Enhancing employers’ involvement in Social Protection policy debates
Session 5 – Supporting the development of National Social Protection Strategies: the ABND methodology
Enhancing employers’ involvement in Social Protection policy debates
Turin, 1-4 September 2015

2. Key questions
What are the objectives & methodology of the ABND exercise?
What are the main steps of the ABND process?
How do we ensure that all stakeholders are involved from the outset?
How do we move from a technical validation of the report to a political endorsement?
How can the ABND exercise contribute to a country’s national strategy on social protection?

3. Methodology of the ABND
Objectives of the ABND
Provide recommendations for the progressive implementation of the nationally defined social protection floor
Methodology of the ABND
SP situation
Recomen-dations to fill gaps
Compare with national SPF
Strategy/ roadmap
Trade-offs
Technical studies to inform the «dialogue» (bilateral consultations, tripartite workshops)

4. Three steps ABND FACTSHEET
Step 1 – Building the assessment matrix to define priority recommendations
ABND FACTSHEET
Step 2 – Rapid Assessment Protocol i.e. costing, fiscal space analysis, advocacy to support trade-offs
Step 3 – Technical/political endorsement & further action

5. STEP 3 – Finalisation & endorsement STEP 1 – Assessment matrix
1. Inventory of schemes through desk review and bilateral consultations (June 2011)
2. Draft assessment matrix (July 2011)
3. Dialogue # 1 to validate the Assessment Matrix and provide policy recommendations (August 2011)
4. Translation of policy recommendations into “costable” scenarios (September 2011 – March 2012)
5. Dialogue # 2 to validate the choice of scenarios (November 2011, February 2012)
6. Data collection for the RAP protocol and costing of the scenarios (November March 2012)
7. Dialogue # 3 to present the results of the costing and discuss the fiscal space (March 2012); Training on costing (May 2012); Training course on Social protection: Assessment, Costing and Beyond (October 2012)
9. Endorsement by UN/RTG joint team and presentation to the government (October 2012 – March 2013)
8. Finalization of the costing and assessment matrix; writing of the ABND report (May-August 2012)
STEP 1 – Assessment matrix
National dialogue
STEP 2 – Costing using the RAP model

6. Involving stakeholders
ABND
Line ministries (Labour, Health, Social Welfare, Planning, Interior, Education, Finance, Rural Development, Women’s Affairs, etc.), social security institutions
Local governments
Workers’ and employers’ organizations
National Statistics Office, academicians
UN agencies involved in SPF (ILO, UNICEF, WHO, UNESCAP, UNFPA, UNAIDS, UNESCO, UNWOMEN, UNDP, WFP), World Bank, ADB, other development partners
Civil society

7. Step 1: Building the assessment matrix
SPF objectives
Govt. strategy
Existing provisions
Policy gaps
Implement-ation issues
Recomm-endations
Health
Children
Working age
Elderly
Identifying existing situation in the country
Identifying policy gaps and implementation issues, addressing which would complete the SPF
Priority policy options, decided through national dialogue
Four SPF guarantees

8. Policy gaps
Policy gaps: Missing legislation or policy leading to a part of the population being excluded from the complete SPF For e.g.
Only formal sector workers and very poor people are entitled to social health protection
Only formal sector workers are entitled to a child allowance for pre-school children
There is no unemployment protection scheme for workers in case of loss of employment

9. Implementation issues
Implementation issues: Despite existing policies or legislation, people do not have effective access to entitlements
For e.g.
Despite universal access to social health protection, people from rural areas have limited protection due to poor health care infrastructure
Enforcement of the Social Security Act is low, due to employers not registering their staff and a lack of resources to reach out to informal sector workers

10. Step 1: Building the assessment matrix

11. From Step 1 to Step 2
Recommendations are converted in “cost-able” policy scenarios

12. Step 2: Rapid Assessment Protocol
RAP is a simplified Excel tool developed by ILO to estimate the cost of providing SPF benefits (for health, children, working age and the elderly) over a 5-10 year period

13. Step 2: Rapid Assessment Protocol
At the end of Step 2, we have the cost of implementing SPF benefits expressed as % of GDP (e.g. Thailand)

14. Step 2: Rapid Assessment Protocol
Cost of implementing scenarios over 5-10 years (Benefits worksheet)
Projected government budget (GGO)
New government budget + =
Two possible cases:
Case 1: The new government budget is balanced and fiscal space is available in the country.
Case 2: The new government budget is in deficit. New fiscal space needs to be created through changes in budget allocations, increase in government revenues through additional taxes, etc.
In both cases, especially case 2, the government needs to be convinced that investing in the SPF is good for the country and for social and economic growth.

15. Step 3: Finalization and endorsement
Advocating to policy-makers can be done with:
Evidence from other countries
Economic models to demonstrate the expected impact of policy options on reduction in poverty and inequality, increase in growth, productivity and employability
Financial models to assess the return on social investment
Communication and awareness generation among people, government, civil society, social partners

16. Support new strategies, roadmaps for the implementation of strategies

17. Strengths of ABND
It provides a coordinated, holistic and coherent approach to the development of social protection in a country
It initiates national dialogue on social security strategy, SPF, priority policy options, problems in providing social protection to all and ways to address the issues
It provides evidence on the feasibility of different policy options
It can serve as a baseline for monitoring of SPF implementation (within the national framework)

18. Limitations of ABND
The analysis conducted under Step 1 is simplistic and does not go into details on operations and institutional capacities
The social dialogue usually takes place at the technical level and higher-level policy makers or “champions” may need to be involved during Step 3
The RAP is based on some assumptions leading to rough estimates of future costs; additional actuarial studies are needed for the finalisation of the design of proposed schemes

19. Exercise 1 - Case study – conducting the ABND in Coresia