Paper short abstract:

The paper examines the relationship between levels and types of social protection and progress towards the Millennium Development Goals. It identifies which forms of social protection are most effective at achieving specific development goals.

Paper long abstract:

While countries with higher levels of social protection coverage should be able to achieve greater progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) this relationship has never been empirically tested. The paper examines the relationship between social protection and the MDGs using composite and disaggregated social protection indicators as well as composite and disaggregated MDG progress variables. Thus identifies which forms of social protection are most effective at assisting with specific development goals. The composite MDG progress index is an aggregated score of the eight core targets for developing countries from 2000 to 2013. The paper also uses Asian Development Bank's (ADB) social protection index (SPI) for 35 South East Asian and Pacific countries as an alternate indicator for social protection.

There has been much conjecture about inequality and social protection being missing elements of the original MDG. The new round of goals: the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), include the reduction of inequality as an overarching goal and social protection policies as a means for its achievement. It is therefore important to determine if levels of social protection have any bearing on MDG progress and to inform how innovative methods of social protection can be harnessed to achieve progress towards the SDGs.