scholarly journals Broadening the social investment agenda: The OECD, the World Bank and inclusive growth

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 121-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rianne Mahon
Keyword(s):  
World Bank ◽  
Inclusive Growth ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
The South ◽  
The North ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Work Family ◽  
Intergenerational Cycle

Towards the close of the 20th century, the idea of social investment gained purchase as a way to legitimise social policy as a productive contribution. For those in the North, social investment provided a new rationale to counter neoliberal attacks on the welfare state, while in the South, the idea caught on in the form of conditional cash transfers. The World Bank and Organisation for Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD) played key roles in the development and diffusion of the social investment agenda beginning in the mid-1990s. While hewing to a common core, their interpretations of social investment differed in important respects. The OECD sought to grapple with the emergence of more flexible, post-industrial labour markets, marked by growing precarity, dualisation and feminisation and focused on work–family balance as a solution while the Bank, focused on the South, emphasised social investment in very poor children to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty. In response to new pro-equality movements and intellectual research documenting the growth in inequality, however, a decade later, both organisations moved to incorporate a broader orientation, focused on the concept of ‘inclusive growth’. This article explores these developments.

Social investment, inclusive growth that is sustainable and the new global social policy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Deeming ◽  
Paul Smyth
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Inclusive Growth ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Developed Economies ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject

The chapter will examine the strengths and weaknesses of the social investment approach before looking at how it can be enhanced by the inclusive growth framework which has been the subject of a major dialogue between the OECD itself with the World Bank. This chapter reflects on how well the social policy discipline is responding to the challenge of reintegration with economic policy identifying the key challenges which lie ahead for developed economies.

Developing and Spreading a Social Investment Perspective

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Jenson
Keyword(s):  
Human Capital ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Policy Instrument ◽  
Capital Investments ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Human Capital Investments ◽  
Capital Development

In the mid-1990s, the practice of international organizations began to cohere around the social investment perspective, with strategies that were child-centred and advocated human capital investments for economic growth and social development. This chapter examines the World Bank, which endorsed the policy instrument of conditional cash transfers (CCT) to allow very poor families to invest in children’s health and education—a stock-plus-buffer strategy. Then it scans the OECD, which recommended early childhood education to ensure human capital development and the labour-market activation of parents—a stock-plus-flow strategy. Both organizations developed anti-poverty positions with attention to the intergenerational transfer of disadvantage and investments in human capital. This similarity has declined in recent years, as the World Bank incorporated the social investment perspective into its new inclusive growth frame, while the OECD turned its attention to problems of inequality rather than poverty and thereby associated itself less with the social investment perspective.

scholarly journals New possibilities of identifying social capital for its use in sustainable rural development

2012 ◽  
Vol 51 (No. 2) ◽  
pp. 57-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Lošťák
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Rural Development ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Social Acceptance ◽  
Sustainable Rural Development ◽  
New Methods ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World

In relation to sustainable rural development, the paper starts with the question of its conditions. One of them is social acceptance of various projects or programmes. This issue is joined with the co-ordination of human activities. The mechanism facilitating the co-ordination in contemporary societies is related to social capital. Its concept is outlined through the references to the basic literature about the topic. Using content analysis, based on the quantification of the categories created through the analysis of the literature about the topic, the social capital in selected municipalities is investigated. The main aim of the paper, however, is to show the role of this method in social capital fast identification. Although the approach necessitates further elaboration, it can be considered as the first important step in the practice of development activities. The background of the paper reflects the challenges of the World Bank concerning the elaboration and development of the new methods of measuring social capital.

Globalisation and the Future of Ageing: Developing a Critical Gerontology

2003 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 144-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Phillipson
Keyword(s):  
World Bank ◽  
World Trade Organisation ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
Global Migration ◽  
Critical Gerontology ◽  
Social Divisions ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Life Course

Debates on globalisation have become an important area within the social sciences. The purpose of this chapter is to extend this discussion to the study of ageing and in particular the field of critical gerontology. Some of the concerns here include issues around inequality and social divisions running through the life course. These are being changed and influenced in new ways by the political and economic changes associated with globalisation. The argument of the paper is that globalisation brings forth a new set of actors and institutions influencing the social construction of public policy for old age. Some of the themes covered in this paper include the rise of transnational bodies such as the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation, problems affecting people in the developing world, the acceleration of global migration in various forms, and changes in the nature of citizenship and citizen-rights. The chapter concludes by setting out the case for an ‘age- sensitive’ globalisation that can provide an effective challenge to new forms of inequality and exclusion.

scholarly journals James Walter McLeod, 2 January 1887 - 11 March 1978

1979 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 421-444
Keyword(s):  
World Bank ◽  
Civil Service ◽  
Service Industry ◽  
The South ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
Industry And Commerce ◽  
Aged Forty

J. W. McLeod was born in Dumbarton on 2 January 1887. His father, John, an architect, belonged to a family whose occupations ranged through law, medicine, the civil service, industry and commerce, conducted mainly in the south of Scotland. John McLeod had built up a successful practice, and at the time of his marriage in 1884 had just completed the new Glasgow synagogue— a surprising commission for a Presbyterian. He was then aged forty-five and his bride, Lilias Symington McClymont, who was twenty-one years his junior, was the daughter of what was then described as a gentleman farmer in Borgue, Kirkcudbrightshire. Less than four years later John died of diabetes, leaving his widow with two sons, Norman and James. Norman was to work for many years on irrigation schemes in India, and later to become a technical adviser to the World Bank. Four months after her husband’s death, Mrs McLeod bore a third son who was named John, after his father. He was to train as a lawyer and to make his career in banking.

Protecting access to land for indigenous and non-indigenous communities: A new page for the World Bank?

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 501-516
Author(s):  
Margherita Brunori
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Equitable Access ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
Social Standards ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
International Instruments

AbstractThe World Bank has reviewed its environmental and social policies at a moment of intense production of international instruments dealing with land tenure, all of which take the form of soft law. This endeavour is motivated by the progressive acknowledgement of the importance of secure and equitable access to land for the realization of human rights and food security. The latest contribution of the World Bank to this debate is of great significance. This article aims to unveil the effects that the new Environmental and Social Framework is likely to generate in this context. It analyses the protection of access to land and security of tenure contained in the World Bank’s Environmental and Social Standards in light of the developments occurring at the international level. To this end, the article reviews the changes to the standards in the context of the social impacts when a lending project affects land holders or users directly or indirectly; addresses the mechanisms for protecting, compensating and improving livelihood opportunities for those affected by the projects; and comments on the safeguarding of indigenous peoples’ lands. The article finds that the World Bank, by incorporating some of these emerging standards, has confirmed the relevance of emerging principles and guidelines on land, even if they are contained in non-binding instruments. On a critical note, the article recognizes the refusal of the World Bank to adopt the underlying discourse and fully embrace human rights achievements in the context of land issues.

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