IPC-IG researchers recommend their favourite publications in a video campaign

Over the last few months, the International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth (IPC-IG) has been disseminating the #StaffPicks video campaign on its social media channels. As the name implies, members of our research team recommended to the audience some of their favourite publications published by the Centre. This is the first edition of the yearly campaign that aims at recalling some of the IPC-IG´s most interesting publications. They span a wide variety of subjects, ranging from social protection for migrants to maternity and paternity leave policies.  

Opening the campaign, Lucas Sato recommended the Research Report “Improving social protection for migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in Egypt: An overview of international practices”, which aimed to answer key questions in the debate on social protection and migration, such as how low- and middle-income countries can adapt their social protection systems to include migrants, and how to finance this expansion.  

He was followed by Nicolo Bird, who chose the Research Report “Next Practices—Innovations in the COVID-19 social protection responses and beyond”. This publication systematises the social protection innovations implemented in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which can be leveraged to build more inclusive and sustainable systems in the medium and long terms. 

An issue of the Policy in Focus magazine, titled "What's next for social protection in light of COVID-19: challenges ahead", was Karen Pereira’s recommendation. It delves more in depth into the main topics—including financing, universal basic income, linkages to food security and employment, as well as gender-, child-, and disability-sensitive programmes—discussed during the round tables of the global e-conference “Turning the Covid-19 crisis into an opportunity: What’s next for social protection?”, held in October 2020 by the socialprotection.org platform.  

João Pedro Dytz suggested the Policy Research Brief “Proposed reforms of the social protection systems of Morocco and Tunisia in light of the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis" because he finds the comparison between the two neighbouring countries on the COVID-19 situation particularly interesting, especially the fact that both underwent social protection reforms before the pandemic and enacted significantly different responses to it.  

Anaïs Vibranovski’s favourite IPC-IG publication is the Working Paper “Integration of administrative records for social protection policies: contributions from the Brazilian experience”. She explained that the authors of the publication—IPC-IG researchers—worked directly in the implementation of the Brazilian Single Registry for Social Programmes at some point, so they were very well positioned to discuss the lessons learned from the Brazilian experience. In addition, she likes that the authors outline crucial aspects of the design and implementation of such a massive-scale integrated registry while using a simple vocabulary.  

Beatriz Burattini recommended the issue of Policy in Focus “Wealth tax: perspectives in a post-pandemic world”, which discusses how the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted wealth inequality around the globe. What Burattini liked about this issue is that it compiles articles about tax policies in an inclusive and intelligible manner for people who may not have an economics background. 

The "Review of national maternity and paternity policies and support for breastfeeding in the workplace in Latin America and the Caribbean" was Camila Pereira's choice. As she explained in the video, this publication approaches a type of social protection policy that is not as commonly discussed in the research world, but which is nonetheless very important as one of the reasons women are not able to work is because of the lack of maternity and paternity polices.  

Fernando Araujo recommended the One Pager “Social and racial inequalities as contributing factors to COVID-19 vulnerability in São Paulo, Brazil”, which presents the finding of a study that estimated the social and racial inequalities in the risk of hospitalisation and death by COVID-19, and showed how vulnerability to COVID-19 was shaped by pre-existing social and health inequities in São Paulo, Brazil’s most populous state. 

Nourjelha Yousif chose two publications, “Social protection in Sudan—system overview and programme mapping” and “Social protection coverage—Sudan case study”. She believes that both publications helped enrich the social protection literature in Sudan as they were able to provide a comprehensive and accurate description of the existing system and the effective coverage of these programmes. 

The Research Report "social assistance programmes in South Asia: an evaluation of socio-economic impacts" was recommended by Isabela Franciscon. The study regroups 63 experimental or quasi-experimental evaluations of 17 non-contributory national flagship programmes in the region and provides a critical review of the literature to summarise the impacts of different types of social assistance on socio-economic outcomes across South Asian countries. 

Still regarding South Asia, Krista Alvarenga chose a series of eight One Pagers presenting social protection measures in specific countries of the region. What Alvarenga likes about the series is that each One Pager provides a good overview of what is happening in the social protection space of each the different countries of the region, featuring comprehensive recommendations.  

Charlotte Bilo recommended a publication which approaches social protection as a mechanism to potentially reduce gender inequality, the Research Report “Gender and social protection in South Asia: an assessment of the design of non-contributory programmes”. This video was also featured in our campaign to celebrate International Women’s Day. 

Finally, Nicole Figueiredo recommended the Policy Research Brief "Communication and social participation in the state of Bahia’s Unified Social Assistance System", which seeks to identify weaknesses in both the internal and external communications of the Brazilian state of Bahia's Unified Social Assistance System and design strategies to improve communication with society in general as well as with other public policies. 

All videos were published on our social media accounts, and they can be easily found in a playlist featured in our YouTube channel.