Social fund

A social fund (sometimes also called Social Investment Fund, Social Fund for Development, Social Action Fund, National Solidarity Fund or Social Development Agency) is an institution, typically in a developing country, that provides financing (usually grants) for small-scale public investments targeted at meeting the needs of poor and vulnerable communities. Social Funds also aim at contributing to social capital and development at the local level. In many cases they serve as innovators and demonstrators of new methods of decentralized participatory decision-making, management, and accountability that may be adopted for broader application by public sector organizations.

Prevalence of social funds

In 2007 Social Funds existed in more than 45 countries, predominantly in poorer and smaller developing countries that receive significant official development assistance. However, a Social Fund also exists in Romania, a country that has recently joined the EU, as well as in many other Eastern European countries. Probably the largest Social Fund is the Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF) with a resource base of US$ 500 million. Social Funds have channeled close to US$ 5 billion of World Bank funding in Africa alone between 1999 and 2005 and have channeled more than ten billion dollars from all donors and governments' own resources over the past 20 years.

Social Fund (UK)

See Social Fund for other uses of the term.

The Social Fund in the UK was a form of welfare benefit provision payable for exceptional or intermittent needs, in addition to regular payments such as Jobseeker's Allowance or Income Support.

The United Kingdom coalition government has abolished the discretionary social fund with effect from April 2013, by means of legislation contained in the Welfare Reform Act 2012. Community care grants and crisis loans will be abolished from April 2013 and instead funding is being made available to local authorities in England and to the devolved administrations to provide such assistance in their areas as they see fit.

Introduction

There were two categories of Social Fund:

The social fund schemes were implemented in 1987 to 1988, as part of an overall review of benefits (the Fowler reviews) initiated by Norman Fowler, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (1981–1987) replacing the former system of Single Payments of Supplementary Benefit.

Social Fund

The term Social Fund may refer to: