In this episode, we resume the building block of our social protection solar system on the topic of delivery and provision of social protection. In this second episode of the series, we will turn to India, to understand how informal workers organizations can play an important role to improve access to their members by facilitating the last mile delivery of services or benefits.
The Self-Employed Women’s Association, SEWA, set up in India their so-called Shakti Kendras, or SSKs. I talked to Susan Thomas, the National Coordinator of Health and Childcare programmes at the Lok Swas-thya SEWA Trust (LSST), to learn more about this worker-led initiative.
Susan explained how the Shakti Kendras operates, how they help informal workers to access social protection in India, how digital tools are being integrated in their work, as well as the next steps of the Shakti Kendras.
***
Learn more:
-BLOG: Bridges to Better Lives: SEWA’s Community Health Workers (October 05, 2019), by Annie Devenish, Laura Alfers https://www.wiego.org/blog/bridges-better-lives-sewas-community-health-workers/
-We are the bridge’: an implementation research study of SEWA Shakti Kendras to improve community engagement in publicly funded health insurance in Gujarat, India (2022), by Susan Thomas, Sharmada Sivaram, Zubin Shroff, Ajay Mahal, Sapna Desai https://gh.bmj.com/content/7/Suppl_6/e008888
-BLOG: In India, One-stop Shops Increase Access to Healthcare, Nutrition and Social Security Services for Working Poor (May 15, 2017), by Laura Alfers https://www.wiego.org/blog/india-one-stop-shops-increase-access-healthcare-nutrition-and-social-security-services-working/
*Our theme music is Focus from AA Aalto (Creative Commons)
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In this episode, we resume the building block of our social protection solar system on the topic of delivery and provision of social protection. In this second episode of the series, we will turn to India, to understand how informal workers organizations can play an important role to improve access to their members by facilitating the last mile delivery of services or benefits.
The Self-Employed Women’s Association, SEWA, set up in India their so-called Shakti Kendras, or SSKs. I talked to Susan Thomas, the National Coordinator of Health and Childcare programmes at the Lok Swas-thya SEWA Trust (LSST), to learn more about this worker-led initiative.
Susan explained how the Shakti Kendras operates, how they help informal workers to access social protection in India, how digital tools are being integrated in their work, as well as the next steps of the Shakti Kendras.
***
Learn more:
-BLOG: Bridges to Better Lives: SEWA’s Community Health Workers (October 05, 2019), by Annie Devenish, Laura Alfers https://www.wiego.org/blog/bridges-better-lives-sewas-community-health-workers/
-We are the bridge’: an implementation research study of SEWA Shakti Kendras to improve community engagement in publicly funded health insurance in Gujarat, India (2022), by Susan Thomas, Sharmada Sivaram, Zubin Shroff, Ajay Mahal, Sapna Desai https://gh.bmj.com/content/7/Suppl_6/e008888
-BLOG: In India, One-stop Shops Increase Access to Healthcare, Nutrition and Social Security Services for Working Poor (May 15, 2017), by Laura Alfers https://www.wiego.org/blog/india-one-stop-shops-increase-access-healthcare-nutrition-and-social-security-services-working/
*Our theme music is Focus from AA Aalto (Creative Commons)
In this episode we take a pause from the discussion around delivery and provision of social protection benefits and take a fresh look at the challenges to finance social protection in a time of very deep transformations in the world of work. Among these changes, we have increasing automation, swift advances in artificial intelligence and the emergence of forms of capital-labour relations through the mediation of platforms.
These multiple processes have triggered an intense discussion about how social protection systems should be or could be financed – and by whom. It was within this ongoing debate that Luca Pelerano and Florian Juergens-Grant have recently published an op-ed at Project Syndicate. In this article, they analysed some of these challenges and, most importantly, advanced some possible innovative alternatives to address them. Luca and Florian will be our guests in this special episode.
Luca Pelerano is a social protection specialist and works at the Social Protection Department of the International Labour Organization (ILO) and he has more than 15 years of experience in policy reform. Florian is the Global Social Protection Advisor at WIEGO, and his work focuses mainly on the issues regarding the financing of social protection for informal workers, the impacts of social protection programmes on labour markets, workers and their families; as well as the design of inclusive social insurance systems.
***
Learn more
Future-Proofing Social Protection, by Luca Pelerano and Florian Juergens-Grant - https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/how-to-ensure-sustainable-financing-social-insurance-by-florian-juergens-grant-and-luca-pellerano-2025-03s
Informal Economy Podcast: Social Protection
In this episode, we resume the building block of our social protection solar system on the topic of delivery and provision of social protection. In this second episode of the series, we will turn to India, to understand how informal workers organizations can play an important role to improve access to their members by facilitating the last mile delivery of services or benefits.
The Self-Employed Women’s Association, SEWA, set up in India their so-called Shakti Kendras, or SSKs. I talked to Susan Thomas, the National Coordinator of Health and Childcare programmes at the Lok Swas-thya SEWA Trust (LSST), to learn more about this worker-led initiative.
Susan explained how the Shakti Kendras operates, how they help informal workers to access social protection in India, how digital tools are being integrated in their work, as well as the next steps of the Shakti Kendras.
***
Learn more:
-BLOG: Bridges to Better Lives: SEWA’s Community Health Workers (October 05, 2019), by Annie Devenish, Laura Alfers https://www.wiego.org/blog/bridges-better-lives-sewas-community-health-workers/
-We are the bridge’: an implementation research study of SEWA Shakti Kendras to improve community engagement in publicly funded health insurance in Gujarat, India (2022), by Susan Thomas, Sharmada Sivaram, Zubin Shroff, Ajay Mahal, Sapna Desai https://gh.bmj.com/content/7/Suppl_6/e008888
-BLOG: In India, One-stop Shops Increase Access to Healthcare, Nutrition and Social Security Services for Working Poor (May 15, 2017), by Laura Alfers https://www.wiego.org/blog/india-one-stop-shops-increase-access-healthcare-nutrition-and-social-security-services-working/
*Our theme music is Focus from AA Aalto (Creative Commons)
