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one of the availability of administrative skills which are, by definition, scarce and for which a new social security agency must compete with other sectors of public administration. In the early stages, the availability of administrators capable of performing their task may be more important than the institutional infrastructure itself. Different choices may be envisaged as between confining the whole administrative burden to a special ad hoc institution or shifting it partly to the employer ΟΙ to the State. No generalisations are possible in this respect as the problem is typically one which depends on a whole series of other factors. recent analysis of the administrative process of social security in Africa1, hope was expressed that, if the contribution of social security organisations to development is duly recognised, social security may become a high-priority com- petitor for scarce human resources and measures may
taken to render this administration more stable and more efficient. This judgment may be equally applied to all developing countries.
(b)
Relationships between social security
and other aspects of development
, be
In a
It seems evident that in a national development plan the functions of an important social institution such as social security should not be presented in isolation but seen in the context of its relationships with other aspects of development. These aspects, which belong to the societal environment of the institution, determine, to a large extent, the shape of the scheme the society has adopted and are, in turn, affected by its operations.
A #CIе
The demographic aspects of the situation of a country determine directly the scope of social security schemes, particularly with regard to health services, pensions and family allowances. They have been extensively studied in relation to social insurance2 and the basic statistical data are generally available. difficult task is to estimate the impact of social security on demography, as it is extremely difficult to isolate the effect of the scheme from that of other factors. In recent years, a new function has been assigned to social security schemes in the developing countries in relation to family planning programmes.
Related to the demographic factor a re social __structure_aspects of the country's situation, i.e. the division of the population into different occupational groups and the relationships between them. The working of a social security scheme will have to be planned within the context of the general trends in the evolution of social structures of the country, particularly in relation to a gradual extension of a scheme on a geographic basis or by industry. Other factors, for instance, the high mobility of certain population strata, may feature prominently in the consideration of investments in some costly social equipment.
As we
have stressed several times throughout this paper, economic aspects of development are of fundamental importance to sccial security planning in developing countries. Although an economic analysis of social security operations is inconclusive as to the impact of the institution on the economic factors of development, the economic side effects of social security schemes, which are important in industrialised countries, are clearly even more important in developing countries.
Redistribution of income is considered as one of the major requirements of development planning and, although the redistributive effects of social security systems are extremely
hard to grasp, "the possibility of subjecting them to quantitative analysis and including them within the economic circuits and national accounts" constitutes a challenge to researchers and national planners.3
The possible role of social development projects also
I See Victor Gerdes:
security in affording resources for cther attracts the attention of economic planners. This
"African Social Security Administration", in Revue internationale des Sciences administratives, No. 2, 1973, p. 179.
2 Cf. Robert J. Myers: "Demography and Social Security", in "Social Security and National Economy" (Studies and Research, No. 1), ISSA, Geneva, 1970.
3 See Lucila Leal de Araujo: "Social Security as an Instrument of Income Redistribution in the Developing Countries" in International Social Security Review, No. 3, 1972, p. 250.
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