The Social Protection Initiative at Dvara Research is a policy initiative that aims to conduct research that will inform the design and implementation of a universal social security system. We believe a universal social security system is one that protects households and individuals against the vulnerabilities faced across the life cycle. At the same time, it is important to keep in mind India’s unique demographic and economic realities. These vulnerabilities are the outcomes of complex interactions of being exposed to a threat, of a threat materializing, and of lacking the defences or resources to deal with a threat.
Research Associate
Research Associate
Senior Research Associate
Senior Research Associate
In this study, we conduct a quantitative analysis of household finance data to understand the status of health insurance ownership in India, identify the determinants of health insurance ownership, and understand the relationship between households’ access to health insurance and their health expenditure.
In this paper, we characterise the National Health Insurance system of Israel, its universal public healthcare system, as one which has adopted managed competition and achieved remarkable outcomes. We place the establishment of the system in the country’s political-economic context to determine the role of the structural factors in shaping health policy in the country.
DBT schemes are meant to ride on digital rails to facilitate smooth direct cash transfers. However, transfers are not always smooth.
Our recently concluded State of Exclusion study finds that payment failures during the back-end processing of a Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) payment are a significant concern. In this blog piece, we highlight the broad takeaways to help the reader better understand the landscape of payment failures.We also set out some broad recommendations to be taken into consideration by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to improve the chances of a successful DBT payment.
This report, a compilation of all our key learnings from field engagements spanning 7 states, attempts to bring the last mile to the fore of policy discussions on social protection entitlements and their delivery.
Large-scale scams in PM-Kisan suggest there's vast leakage in DBT advantages. While inclusion errors are being tracked, exclusion should take priority.
In this paper, we document the experience of Germany’s SHI system with managed competition and the challenges faced by this sub-system in faithfully implementing the principles of managed competition as originally envisioned by Enthoven.
While the system was rightly designed to eliminate ghost beneficiaries, the impact of exclusion errors needs to be professionally and independently evaluated in detail.
In this paper, we look at what made a transition to managed competition possible in the Netherlands, how managed competition has played out, and the challenges that the system currently faces.
In India, the direct benefit transfer (DBT) system has gained enormous acceptance as a method of delivering welfare to the most deserving. It has been the main instrument of governments’ social protection response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In all our research efforts, we strive to maintain an independent voice that speaks for the low-income household and household enterprises. Our ability to perform this function is significantly enhanced by our commitment to disseminate as a pure public good, all the intellectual capital that we create.
