Social Policy and Development is still one of the main research programmes at the Institute. UNRISD defines social policy as public policies and institutions that aim to protect citizens from social contingencies and poverty, and ultimately to enable them to strive for their own life goals.

Through the research projects carried out under this programme, the Institute sought to stimulate interdisciplinary debate on the nexus between social policy and economic development. The work carried out from 2000 - 2005 explored the ways in which social policy can be a powerful instrument for democratic progress and economic development while, at the same time, pursuing its intrinsic goals such as social protection and justice.

Research projects in this programme area are listed on the right.

Among these, Social Policy in a Development Context became one of the flagship research projects at UNRISD and was extended into two strands of research: thematic comparative research and region-centred comparative research.

The thematic comparative research included the following four projects:

• Macroeconomics and Social Policy
• Democratization and Social Policy
• Commercialization of Health Care: Global and Local Dynamics and Policy Responses
• Gender and Social Policy

The region-centred comparative research focused on late industrializing countries in the following five projects:

• Social Policy in Late Industrializers: Transforming the Developmental Welfare State in East Asia
• Social Policy in Late Industrializers: A Comparative Study of the Latin American Countries
• Social Policy in Late Industrializers: Social Policy and Economic Development in the Middle East and North Africa
• Social Policy in Late Industrializers: The Nordic Experience
• Social Policy in Late Industrializers: Sub-Saharan Africa and the Challenge of Social Policy

Click here to access books related to the 'Social Policy in a Development Context Series' copublished with Palgrave.