Talk:Social risk management

Untitled
Wiki Admin,

Please respect people's work. The article takes time to expand and please issue your warning economically.

How seriously is this being pursued?
When I read that the World Bank is behind this, I'd think it should be a very carefully thought out policy, but just look at that table you cited: They miss listing lightning as a natural/idiosyncratic, opportunities for mental and physical exercise as a meso-scale modulator of the rate at which old age occurs, lead paint and trash fires as an environmental/idiosyncratic...  as you continue with the article, bear in mind that as a reader I'm wondering whether this just represents some casual speculation by one or two people in the WTO or whether it really will be guiding policy on a routine basis. Wnt (talk) 00:51, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Proposed Revisions and Expansion of the "Social Risk Management (SRM)" Entry
Wnt, I agree with your comment about the lack of clarity regarding the pursuance of this policy. Not only is the article lacking implications of the approach in World Bank policies and their applications, but it is also deficient in providing background that led to the formulation of this framework, details about key players and their tasks identified by the World Bank for the success of this approach, criticism of this approach and the current effects and future implications of the project in general.

This semester I have been involved in a rigorous course titled Poverty, Justice and Human Capabilities at Rice University that has taught me the significance of such global measures. I therefore propose to add sections on background, levels of formality (informal, market-based and public), players in this approach and their roles, criticism, applications and future implications to improve the page.

A background section is needed to explain the need for a new definition of social protection based on SRM. The three conventional areas of Social protection (SP), namely labor market intervention, social insurance and social assistance, have long served in protecting against social risk. Expansion of these measures through a conceptual extension thus demands explanation.

The current article could also use more explanation regarding all the potential strategies and the key players and their roles in making SRM work. The article also does not elaborate or even mention the three levels of formality of risk management (informal, market-based and public) which is necessary to understand both the SRM approach and its applications. Concepts can be abstract and in order to make them practically useful and applicable in policy making, it is imperative to understand strategies proposed and supported by the conceptual framework, participants in these strategies and their tasks.

There is also a lack of criticism of the approach in this article. Wikipedia has a neutrality policy, which cannot be complied with if both positive and negative sides of the proposition are not discussed. Therefore, the article needs a section on potential disadvantages and criticism.

As Wnt mentions, the article has neglected the implications of the framework. Despite the fact that the article was last updated in August 2011, there is no information available regarding the effects of the SRM framework on World Bank policies and its work in the international arena. Moreover, this year the Social Protection and Labor Sector Strategy for 2012-2022 is under progress so it would be useful for Wiki-readers to know the current developments in SRM to understand the future implications of the framework in the next decade.

Finally, I would also like to reorganize the article so that the sources of risks precede the strategies designed to fight them.

For a thorough presentation of the project and a resourceful entry, I would like to request suggestions to expand upon the ideas I present here. Please feel free to propose additional changes that you would like to see made to this page or questions answered by it. Thank you. Kjhooda (talk) 05:51, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Suggestions
In the last sentence of the intro, I would suggest that you delete the comma after "informal." I think its overall very well organized and I also think its significant that you added a section on criticisms and future implications. As we mentioned in class today, I think you should try to find a little more information to add about Yemen. It just feels awkward to mention Yemen and Togo, but then only elaborate on Togo. Another suggestion I would put forth would be to edit the strategies section, because some of the bullet points are unnecessary and could just be said in one sentence rather than being broken up (example: under coping strategies and mitigation strategies there are only two bullet points). ChloeCBlaskiewicz (talk) 20:05, 10 April 2012 (UTC)ChloeCBlaskiewicz


 * Thank you for looking over my article Chloe! As we discussed in class today, I will try to incorporate secondary sources analyzing the chief article on the feasibility study done in Yemen. As for the strategies section, I agree it needs work but I doubt I will have time to get to that before the project due date since I never set out to edit that particular section. However, I will make sure to at least take care of the mechanical errors that you pointed out. Thank you once again for your suggestions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.8.23.1 (talk) 03:26, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Peer Review
In total, this is a very important article on an important and seemingly complicated issue. This article provides sufficient references and a generally thorough overview of the topic. In particular, the section on the Togo case study is especially useful in explaining the concept of SRM.

A general point of improvement throughout the article would be explaining these concepts in greater depth in order to increase clarity. This is a difficult topic with much “insider’s knowledge” so it is laudable to try to bring it to the public on Wikipedia. In order to do this more effectively, it would be extremely useful to almost overly define every concept (especially economic terms) so that they are more understandable to a general reader. I think the page on economics may provide some examples of how to do this effectively.

What follows are some more specific point for improvement organized by section:

Intro: Typo in the second sentence. It currently says “takig” and it should say “taking.” Who are those who are most vulnerable that are mentioned in the third sentence? Women, children? Would be useful to be more specific here, if possible. Also, does this mean economic risk taking specifically? I think it does, but it would be useful to clarify.

Motivations: Provide a wiki link to development studies when you mention development. Perhaps explain in a sentence or two what it means that it has been criticized on equity and efficiency trade-offs. This is unclear to me. A definition of the term “ex-ante” and more context for this point would increase clarity. Put “established in 1996” as an intro clause to the last bullet point as opposed to a clause at the end of the sentence. Explain what it means to shift focus from “instruments to objectives.”

Source of social risks: This sections seems very important and at the very heart of this page, however it seems unclear to me right now. Definitions of each of the terms “idiosyncratic,” “regional covariant” and “nation-wide covariate” would be useful to increase clarity. The chart, however, is very useful and well done. It would simply benefit from more explanation, in very simple terms. Additionally, more references here would be useful.

Feasibility Studies/Togo” Watch for passive voice. Also would be useful to include information on the success or failure of these programs. Additionally, information on Yemen would be useful since it is mentioned earlier.

Criticism: This section would benefit from some re-wording in order to keep a more neutral POV. For example, instead of saying “There is a lack of empirical evidence” it would be better to say, According to so and so researcher, there is a lack of empirical evidence. Or, in the third paragraph, it would be good to say whom, specifically, is “firing” at SRM.

Virginiawhite09 (talk) 22:56, 10 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you for reviewing my contributions Virginiawhite09! I have been working on clarity since day one for this article, which is why I have tried to link most of the dense terms to their own pages for explanation. I appreciate your suggestion to add a couple of explanatory sentences to clarify concepts but there are some that have entire Wikipedia articles on them and it would be immensely difficult to capture the essence of it all in a couple of sentences. Having said that I will definitely make things clearer in the sections I have added (all except strategies and sources of social risks). I also intend to take your advice regarding neutrality and smoothing out some mechanical issues. Once again thank you for your suggestions and I hope to improve this article by implementing them.Kjhooda (talk) 03:47, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Peer Review
The wording of this article some work. It is understandable, but takes effort to get through. When I felt that I could sufficiently understand what the sentences were saying, I edited them to try to make them simpler and easier to understand. I did in-depth grammar and sentence structure edits in the paragraph at the top of the page and the one under motivations. The rest of my grammar edits too minor to be noted. I also added Wikipedia links to the 1997 Asian financial crisis page in the sentence by the first bullet point under motivations so that readers can see the causes of the crisis and consequently be more able to understand how it changed the way the World Bank looked on risk management. Another link I added was to a page that explained what the term covariate meant in the "sources of risk" chart so that readers wouldn't be confused about the word's meaning. I feel like this page is relatively easy to read because of the bullet point and chart method of organization.Kristianedosomwan5 (talk) 01:22, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you for reviewing my article Kristianedosomwan! I did initially add that link to the East Asian Crisis but after a couple of days the page went inactive. Thank you for linking it again now that it is active again. Also, the term covariate used in the sources of social risk table is not used in the sense explained by the link you have added. This is why I had to remove the term from my own contributions because the wikipedia link refers to a different usage of the term. Unfortunately I cannot do the same with the table because it comes word by word from the cited source. Having said that I am working on making this page clearer and I am glad that you feel it is somewhat understandable. I will also be looking at the structural edits you made and use the pattern to modify any new content I add. Once again thank you for your suggestions and I hope to improve on my article using them. Kjhooda (talk) 04:01, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Peer Review
I agree with Kristianedosomwan on her comments that there are some syntactical issues with your article that make some of it difficult to understand. Under the subsection motivations you write “but it has not played much of a role in development work because the imitation of these measures in developing countries is criticized based on equity and efficiency trade-off arguments.” What measures are being imitated that cause this criticism? Another suggestion is that in motivations you also wrote "to make matter worse." I think this sounds more like a personal interjection of opinion when you want to state unbiased information. In the last section on future implications you have this sentence, “World Bank’s Social Protection and Labor Sector that SRM originated from is under the process of formulating its Social Protection and Labor Strategy 2012 – 2022. this sentence is confusing rewording will make it clearer." I think this could be restructured. It is confusing and could be made clearer.

Additionally you have the following as one of the motivations for SRM: "Fulfillment of World Bank’s mission to reduce poverty requires a deeper understanding of the nature of poverty itself." Who said this and where did it come from? You then mention that research suggests findings that support your idea but where did this research come from? What exactly was researched? I feel like you need to substantiate this claim in some way.

I also think that the Togo section it would be interesting to have real examples of how SRM was applied to governmental and social policies in Togo.

Otherwise great work. I really enjoyed reading about your subject and good luck with the rest! Risadieken (talk) 01:53, 11 April 2012 (UTC)RisaDieken
 * Thank you for looking over my article Risadieken! I really appreciate your pointing out the exact sentences that you found confusing and I will be editing them all to make them more reader-friendly. I am also working on some additional content and references to take care of some issues you mentioned (like substantiating claims). Once again thank you for your suggestions and I hope to improve my article through their implementation. Kjhooda (talk) 04:08, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Peer Review
First, I want to commend you for taking on such a complex and discipline-specific topic. Based on the little background information I have concerning social risk management, it seems as though this concept is likely to become more important in the upcoming years, particularly in the field of international development policy. My one major suggestion concerns the readability of this article: you use a lot of technical terms that make understanding this concept difficult, at times. I understand that it's not your job to define every term you use, but it would be helpful if you could include some clarifying statements. For example, in your "Sources of social risk" section, you have a brief introductory sentence that introduces some very complex terms. I suggest that you first define social risk, and then further expand the existing statement so it is more reader-friendly.

Second, in terms of mechanics, I have a few notes. Periods come before citations, not after; in several cases, you do the reverse, which is incorrect. Also, make sure you are using capitalization correctly; according to the Wikipedia Manual of Style, only the first word in titles/headings should be capitalized (i.e. "Future implications" instead of "Future Implications." Moreover, you use a lot of bulleted lists in your article, which is great, but in lots of cases I think you use periods when they are unnecessary (for a good example, see the "coping strategies" section). Lastly, I suggest that you change your section headings so they are all plural (i.e. "Sources of social risk" and "Criticisms"), for the sake of consistency.

Third, I think your "Strategies" section needs work. It seems to me that this is the heart of the article, and yet it has no citations: where did you find all of this information? It would also be great here if you could cite some specific examples of where and when these strategies have been utilized. I realize that SRM is a relatively new concept, but I believe we had several readings in class (Banerjee and Duflo) that cited instances where SRM has been previously employed. Referencing these examples could make this section more understandable.

Finally, is there any way you could incorporate more sources into this article? I noticed that you only have ten, which doesn't seem like very many compared to the other articles I have explored. Perhaps you could pull from scholars who have studied concepts such as disaster relief and microfinance in order to further expand your references. In addition, I suggest you look at the bibliographies of the readings we studied in class - I'm sure there are lots of good articles there that you could potentially utilize.

I realize I've given you several criticisms, but overall I am very impressed with the work you have done here. You have taken on a very complex topic and broken into down into accessible pieces: Great job! In particular, your social risks table and linking to other articles throughout is incredible. I look forward to reading the final, completed article. Crr4 (talk) 02:18, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you for reviewing this article Crr4! I am working on incorporating more sources like you suggested and I will definitely revisit Banerjee and Duflo readings although I do not remember them talking about social risk management strategies. Once again thank you for your suggestions and I hope tom improve my article through them. Kjhooda (talk) 04:24, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassador Program course assignment
This article is the subject of an educational assignment at Rice University supported by the Wikipedia Ambassador Program&#32;during the 2011 Q3 term. Further details are available on the course page.

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