A/64/279 hand, and bolstering economic recovery after a crisis on the other. This assumption has been increasingly questioned in recent years. As the World Bank explains, when public spending in a crisis reaches the poorest, it brings a larger stimulus to aggregate demand, and hence output, given that poor people tend to have a higher propensity to consume. 38 81. Recent economic theories and evidence also call into question the existence of such a trade-off between social protection and longer-term growth, affirming that the failure to address the short-term needs of the poorest victims of a crisis not only dulls the macroeconomic stabilization achieved by current public spending, but also increases poverty and inequality in the longer term, with negative consequences for longer-term growth. 39 82. Social protection measures must be included in national recovery packages. Some countries have already started this process. For example, in 2009 Australia will spend one third of its economic stimulus package on cash payments to low- and middle-income families. Japan has introduced special grants for child-rearing. In South Africa, welfare grants and school feeding programmes have been enhanced, and, at the same time, the coverage of child grants and social pensions was extended. In Brazil and Costa Rica packages include the extension of existing unemployment benefits. 83. As responses to this crisis are devised, States should avoid the risk of seeking short-term quick fixes to poverty and insecurity. Lessons must be learned from past experiences. Countries hit by the Asian crisis in the 1990s put safety nets in place to help the poor cope with the adverse effects of the crisis. In retrospect, these safety nets were too little, too temporary and too late, and they absorbed large amounts of funds. Evidence reveals two key gaps in the protection that safety nets can provide. First, immediate relief may help beneficiaries to cope with crises, but it leaves them just as vulnerable to future crises, which in itself defeats the purpose of social protection. Second, corruption and clientelism were observed in the implementation of a number of the programmes. 40 84. In this sense, international, regional and national responses to the current crisis should be understood by policymakers as providing an opportunity to establish the backbone of strong and stable social protection programmes. These social protection programmes may start as an emergency response but they must be reinforced and extended in time in order to ensure the full realization of the right to social security and other rights that are fundamental for the protection of the poor. VIII. The need for international assistance and cooperation 85. Decreasing levels of exports, restricted access to credit and decreased foreign investment threatens to halt economic growth in many developing countries. This, in turn, will limit the capacity of developing countries to use money from public budgets to invest in social protection measures that are necessary to secure the __________________ 38 39 40 09-45276 Martin Ravallion, “Bailing out the world’s poorest”, Policy Research Working Paper 4763 (World Bank, Washington D.C., October 2008), p. 6. Ibid. International Labour Organization, “Asia in the global economic crisis: impacts and responses from a gender perspective” (February 2009). 19