SOCIAL PROTECTION PROGRAMS AS A STRATEGY FOR POVERTY REDUCTION: A POLICY ANALYSIS OF EFFECTIVENESS, EQUITY, AND THE ROLE OF SOCIAL WORK ADVOCACY

Abstract

The primary tool of global policy to reduce poverty is social protection programs, yet a total of 3.8 billion individuals worldwide lack social protection. The paper provides a critical evaluation of how social protection programmes can alleviate poverty, the structural limitations to their effectiveness, and evaluates how social work advocacy can be used to facilitate rights-based reform. Using the Advocacy Coalition Framework as its theoretical prism, it uses a PRISMA 2020-based systematic literature search of 30 articles published since 2020. Three important conclusions come into light: social assistance decreases the disparity in extreme poverty by 45 percent at any stage worldwide, yet falls short of less than a fifth in low-income nations; IMF conditionalities gradually shrink fiscal space for social expenditure, as 15 of 21 borrower countries have seen less social spending; and social work advocacy is systematically underutilized, despite its requirement for coalition-level policy engagement. The main conclusion of the paper is that social protection as a tool for poverty reduction will require a multidimensional, rights-based approach in which social workers will no longer be seen as passive service providers but instead as active members of rights advocacy coalitions.