The State of Social Safety Nets 2015 World Bank

This report documents the state of the social safety net agenda in low- and middle-income countries. In recent years, a true policy revolution has been under way. The statistics in this reportc apture this revolution and reveal it in many dimensions at the country, regional, and international levels.

The need for social safety nets is a critical concern for governments across the globe and forthe billions of men, women, and children striving to improve their livelihoods. As interest in and the use of social safety nets keep growing, countries struggle to make social safety net interventions more eff ective and to integrate them better in their overall social protection and labor systems.

This latest edition of a periodic series draws heavily on the survey and administrative data in the World Bank’s Atlas of Social Protection: Indicators of Resilience and Equity (ASPIRE), a comprehensive international database.