Social Security Systems in Low-Income Countries: Concepts, Constraints and the Need for Cooperation

This paper describes existing social security systems in developing countries and analyses their institutional strengths and weaknesses. To this end, it identifies four main providers of social security, namely the State, the market, member‐based organizations, and private households. Given the strengths and weaknesses of each system, the paper explores the possibilities of a public‐private partnership which should be based on the use of local information on the one hand while profiting from possibilities of risk sharing and risk pooling on the other.