Research and Program Focus:
Given the current breadth of activities potentially encompassed within the field of SP, the program needs to define a focus to guide the selection of research projects, and to ensure sufficient synergy among the projects for them collectively to have impact.

Social protection and informality
Informality emerged as an important thematic strand running through the first phase of the program , with projects examining a range of schemes or coping mechanisms (often informal) for those excluded from programs, such as social security, which are traditionally accessed through formal employment. In the Asia region, the structural trend towards informal employment represents a major challenge to ensuring that the basic livelihood needs of large numbers of workers and their families are met. A central question for those debating SP approaches therefore concerns the extension of appropriate forms of social protection to growing shares of population outside ‘formal’ employment.
The decision taken at the closing workshop to take ‘informality’ as a core theme in the second phase of the research was thus a recognition of the fact that the informal economy is here to stay for the foreseeable future and has to be taken as the context in which research and policy on social protection is carried out. The theme of informality draws attention both to the conditions under which the majority of the working poor pursue their livelihood strategies as well as to the problems of mobilizing tax revenues from a poor, dispersed and difficult-to-reach workforce.  The mechanisms and design of social protection delivery, as well as how it is paid for, will need to be fundamentally rethought in the light of the large and expanding numbers of informal workers, and their increasing mobility – within and across countries - throughout the region. It is therefore proposed that a second stage of the work should have a strong focus on the provision of social protection to informal workers and their families. Program activities could include analysis of the needs of different groups, policy approaches and interventions, evaluations of existing schemes, issues of voice and representation, and mechanisms for financing such programs.

Linking Social Protection, Human Development  and Economic Growth
While the  ‘promotional’ role of SP has become more widely accepted through the idea of ‘springboards out of poverty’, there is considerable variation in what this means and how it can be translated into practice. There is a tension in the mainstream agenda between the ‘residual’ role assigned to social protection and the synergies that might be gained from a more integrated approach which addresses the multiple dimensions of poverty. Attention to the ‘promotional potential’ of social protection is clearly important in the light of the current constraints on state capacity to finance protective measures. A great deal of innovative work is being undertaken,
In the region by governments as well as by a range of civil society and labor organizations. This project would build on research, analysis and evaluations of these initiatives in order to develop a stronger evidence base of social protection measures that can combine the concern with livelihood security with efforts to build accumulation trajectories for the poor through enhancing their human capabilities, economic endowments or social capital. These activities would also tie the SP agenda more closely to the MDG targets which currently dominate the agendas of many leading development agencies.

Citizenship, Voice and Accountability
Voice has to be a central plank in thinking about SP from the perspective of poor and excluded groups. Voice is critical in the process of identifying needs and priorities, translating this into policies and resource commitments, and ensuring their implementation. Mechanisms for protecting the rights of all citizens to basic livelihoods, for enabling their voices to be heard, and for making policies and interventions accountable to them, are necessary for program effectiveness.  The program would therefore include action research on efforts to organize disenfranchised groups to articulate their priorities, influence design and ensure accountability in the implementation process.

Financing Social Protection
Financing mechanisms – especially when formal employer contributions are not a viable route – is the critical issue for low income countries in considering any expansion of SP. This is particularly relevant when much of the economy is ‘informal’ – that is outside state regulatory structures including taxation; and where many efforts at regulation or taxation push more employers and employees into informality. At the same time, evidence is accumulating about the more progressive impacts and effectiveness of programs funded through general taxation. However, these are hard political choices, and political acceptability for taxation schemes which benefit particular sections of the population is difficult to achieve. It will be essential in this phase of the program to look more carefully at the fiscal regimes, taxation and other financing options, and the effectiveness of programs funded through different mechanisms, in order to develop stronger policy arguments for the sustainability and effectiveness of SP interventions.

Implementing Social Protection Programs
A major challenge of the social protection agenda is the failure of otherwise well conceived programs to meet their objectives – because of failures to factor in the realities on the ground or to give serious attention to the design of the implementation stage. A wide range of activities and interventions have been tried across the region over the past decade – whether by states, NGOs or community organizations. Activities within the program would seek to learn from comparisons of various categories of intervention, examining implementation failures as well as successes,in order to draw out lessons for program design.  Through these assessments, the program would seek to identify and promote innovative interventions that are seen to have worked, as well as learning the lessons from failure.