Harmonizing Services for Inclusive Growth : Improving Access to Essential Services for Vulnerable Groups in Bulgaria
European countries increasingly focus on enhancing access to and strengthening explicit linkages between benefits and essential services to create synergies, avoid dependency of low income families on allowances, and promote labor market participat...
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| Format: | Report |
| Language: | English |
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2019
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/568841574182220278/Harmonizing-Services-for-Inclusive-Growth-Improving-Access-to-Essential-Services-for-Vulnerable-Groups-in-Bulgaria-Technical-Report http://hdl.handle.net/10986/32762 |
| Summary: | European countries increasingly focus on
enhancing access to and strengthening explicit linkages
between benefits and essential services to create synergies,
avoid dependency of low income families on allowances, and
promote labor market participation of the inactive and
vulnerable population. In order to facilitate access to
support people need, Member States are advised to work on
better coordination of social benefits and services to
reduce poverty and support social and labor integration.
This report defines essential services as education, health,
and social, child protection and employment services, and
social benefits as non-contributory cash allowances.
Available evidence suggests that there is substantial scope
to improve the effectiveness of essential services and
benefits in Bulgaria, and that only partial coverage of
vulnerable groups and limited progress in poverty reduction
have been achieved. The system has substantial quantity and
quality gaps in coverage, especially for the bottom 20
percent of the population. The essential services and
benefits provide unbalanced responses to different
vulnerabilities, and are particularly unsuccessful in
offering the poor population an adequate level of support. |
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