Forum discusses challenges in job creation

Expanding training and job creation policies are challenges faced by countries with advanced cash transfer programs in place, experts said Monday (Mar. 17) at the South-South Learning Forum 2014. Promoted by the World Bank, this year's event is taking place all week long in Rio under the theme “Designing and Delivering Social Protection and Labor Systems”.

According to World Bank economist Maria Concepción Steta, who is in charge of monitoring programs in place in Latin America and the Caribbean, Brazil has made a lot of progress with its income transfer policies. One remarkable initiative was to integrate its flagship conditional cash transfer program, Bolsa Família, to other welfare policies, including retirement itself. However, she suggested that the Bolsa Família could be used more effectively by focusing on tracking policies that enabled the government to find out the beneficiaries are successfully getting and retaining higher-paying jobs.

“We have realized how instrumental those cash transfer programs are in reducing poverty in the short term, but this is not enough,” Steta said. In the long run, she recommended that Brazil “keep integrating its policies and improving service levels – especially in education – so that more young people can get to the job market,” she said.

According to Christof Kersting, director of Germany's International Cooperation Agency, creating jobs presents a challenge for all countries. In Germany, where unemployment rates stood around 9% a decade ago, the government is stimulating temporary job creation while still imposing similar labor protection standards for these jobs.

“We have changed the rules of the labor market to create more medium-term, part-time positions, but with clear social security rules,” he explained. This change, he noted, has helped more people to find placements.

The Minister of Social Development and Fight Against Hunger, Tereza Campello, admitted that Brazil's social protection policy still has areas for improvement. She agrees that improving the programs' database to assess effectiveness remains a challenge. “Our programs provide a benchmark, but could advance further with new monitoring and evaluation technologies.”

Even though important milestones in fighting poverty have been reached, the countries' programs do have failures and need continuous updating – recognizing that is critical so adjustments can be made, Kersting pointed out. Still, is confident that the countries, including the most developed ones, are able to identify failures and find common solutions.

“Germany has an advanced social care system, but we still face challenges with our aging population. We have found out that there are elderly people living below the poverty threshold,” he said. “This is something we'd like to discuss with other countries.”

Translated by Mayra Borges