Asian governments have still to usher in durable programmes to protect the region's labour force in the event of job loss or steep pay cuts due to an economic downturn, say development experts.

Such initiatives are in dire need, since the region will be more vulnerable to economic shocks given the pace at which it is embracing globalisation, add the experts from 12 countries who participated in a two-day discussion in Bangkok on the need for social protection in the Asia-Pacific region.

However, the region's governments should conceive relief measures that are tailor made to their particular needs, rather than depend on a one-model-fits-all panacea, pointed out the experts during the meeting organised by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) that ended on Tuesday.

''Asian governments must focus on what policies and social protection schemes will work for them,'' Linda Low, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore's business school, told the gathering. ''There is no template solution.''

Likewise, the region should go beyond the ''rights-based approach'' that prevails in the Western countries, where the state guarantees unemployment insurance for those without work, adds Raj Kumar, head of ESCAP's development research and policy analysis division.

''In the West, there is a framework that is universally accepted and the people know where they stand regards their rights,'' he explains. ''This is not so in Asia, and the 1997 financial crisis brought this to the surface.''

In Thailand, for instance, where the financial contagion began before spreading to other countries in East Asia, government schemes did not offer an adequate social security net to those thrown out of jobs, says Dr Juree Vichit-Vadakan, a Thai development policy expert.

''Some people we surveyed after the '97 crisis said they turned to their families and community for help during that crisis,'' adds Juree, director at the centre for philanthropy and civil society at the Bangkok-based National Institute of Development Administration.

Social protection provider

Such a reality the significance of the family and the community to serve as a social security net in Asian countries needs to be included as one of seven features that national policy makers should consider when conceiving a country's social protection programme, a study released during this meeting declares.

Governments must take the lead as the ''social protection provider'' of the last resort, ''thus requiring the creation of a comprehensive social safety net system with the participation of local communities'', says the study.

In addition, an Asian social protection framework should recognise the need for rural public works programmes, in addition to strengthening the informal sector, adds the 136-page study, 'Protecting Marginalised Groups During Economic Downturns'.

The study also underscores the need for unemployment insurance schemes, for social safety initiatives jointly shaped by governments, the private sector and non-governmental organisations and government-funded social services for health and education.

So far, only the East Asian countries have gone ahead with a few initiatives to absorb the shock of an economic downturn, says Ian Chambers, director of the International Labour Organisation's (ILO) East Asia division. ''There has been distinct progress to deal with the next crisis.''

South Korea has led the way, with its unemployment insurance schemes and government training programmes in place to deal with its citizens forced out of the labour market due to economic contractions.

Thailand, on the other hand, has still to implement similar unemployment insurance methods, although the government has initiated a universal health care scheme. Under this health programme, a Thai citizen can seek medical assistance for any ailment in the country's hospital by paying 30 baht (about 70 US cents) per visit.

''Malaysia, which weathered the '97 crisis in its own way, is moving ahead with some social security programmes,'' adds Chambers.

Youth unemployment

The financial crisis that began in Thailand and spread across Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong and the Philippines, forced economic contractions of up to 13 percent.

Working women in countries like South Korea, Thailand and Indonesia were among the first to be retrenched, lose social welfare from the state or, if hired, were taken in only as part-time, contractual labour, according to the ILO.

Currently, while the East Asian countries are struggling to achieve the impressive economic heights they struck prior to the crisis, this sub-region along with the rest of Asia has to grapple with the growing spectre of youth unemployment.

The Asia-Pacific region, according to a report released early this year by the UN's labour agency, has over 50 percent, or some 33 million people, of the global figure of 66 million youth who are without jobs.

They include Sri Lanka, with 29 percent unemployment among its youth, the Philippines, with 25 percent, South Korea, with 15 percent, and recession-plagued Japan, with almost 10 percent.

''We live in an age of risks,'' Singaporean academic Low told the meeting. ''The more Asia accepts globalisation, the more we will be crisis prone.''

Despite such growing vulnerability, the countries in the region are still searching for a ''structural foundation on which social protection schemes should be built,'' says ESCAP's Kumar.

It is better if it is nuanced, he adds, where developing countries recognise the new thinking on social protection, which places it ''in the context of its contribution to the larger objective of economic growth and poverty reduction''. IPS