GCSPF responds to inequalities @HLPF 2019

e-GCSPF # 25 - July 2019 - HLPF
   
 

Members of the GCSPF participate at the High-level Political Forum 2019

   
 

The High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development will meet from Tuesday, 9 July, to Thursday, 18 July 2019; including the three-day ministerial meeting of the forum from Tuesday, 16 July, to Thursday, 18 July 2019.

The theme is: "Empowering people and ensuring inclusiveness and equality". The HLPF will also review progress towards the SDGs and focus in particular on Goals 4, 8, 10, 13, 16, and 17.
During the ministerial meetings 47 countries will carry out Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs). The programme is here.

Members of the GCSPF will organize and/or participate in several events, see below the information.

Members of the GCSPF will hold an INFORMAL MEETING on Tuesday 16th at 9 am at Guillermo Campuzano’s office which is located at 246 E 46th street between 2nd and 3rd, New York.

   
   
   
 

Social Protection: an essential building block to reduce inequality

   
 

The Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors realeased the Policy Brief “Social Protection: an essential building block to reduce inequality” Reducing inequalities is important for development because the adverse impacts of high inequality undermine efforts to overcome poverty. Inequality endangers social cohesion and peace, it negatively affects economic, social and political participation and undermines trust in institutions. Social protection and its progressive financing are essential pillars for achieving the SDGs, and in particular SDG 10 that aims to reduce inequality within and between countries. Building them requires concerted efforts.

   
   
 

Applying human rights standards for the governance of social protection will unleash its transformative potential

   
 

The 2030 Agenda and its 17 interrelated goals are grounded in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, international human rights treaties, the Millennium Declaration and the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document. The Agenda recognizes that economic growth alone misses those left furthest behind, and its transformative vision is to reach the furthest first, to leave no one behind, to empower the disadvantaged and to end poverty in all its forms everywhere by 2030. Read the chapter on SDG 1 by the GCSPF published at the Spotlight Report 2019.

   
   
 

Confronting ageism and empowering older people to ensure social, economic and political inclusion of all

   
 

This event will bring together a range of experts to examine how ageism and discrimination contribute to growing inequality, and how legal and policy frameworks are necessary for addressing older people’s exclusion. It will explore the potential for positive impact for individuals, societies and economies if older people are empowered, ageism is combatted, and a new understanding of ageing is embedded across all generations. Download the invitation
9 July 2019, 1:15 - 2:45 pm
ConferenceRoom 1, UNHQ

   
   
 

Unleashing the Transformative Potential of the Agenda 2030 Through Participatory Approaches

   
 

The event will look at how participation can be a transformative tool for people not only to become active agents of their own lives but also to build a truly inclusive society where all can reach their full potential by sharing their experience and knowledge, helping to better inform public policies and transform institutions.
Presenting inspiring speakers - from activists with a direct experience of poverty to academics and practitioners - this interactive event aims at starting a conversation around how innovative participatory tools and processes can help break the vicious circle of poverty and social exclusion and simultaneously effectively inform policy and accountability mechanisms. Download the invitation
Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM EDT
United Nations Church Center, 2nd floor

   
   
 

Women's and Feminist's perspective

   
 

Come learn the feminists' position on systematic barriers, interlinkages with human rights, and the HLPF/VNR reform. Download the invitation
Tuesday, July 9 - 6:30 to 8 PM
Conference Room 1

   
   
 

VNR Lab “Leaving no one behind: Inclusive implementation and reporting”

   
 

“Leaving no one behind (LNOB)” is the central, transformative promise of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It represents the unequivocal commitment of all UN Member States to eradicate poverty in all its forms, end discrimination and exclusion, and reduce inequalities and address vulnerabilities, so that all people, regardless of their background, can fulfil their potential in life, and lead decent lives with dignity. This underscores the need for its 17 Sustainable Development Goals to be met for all nations and peoples and for all segments of society.
The 2018 VNR Lab on LNOB examined who are left behind in selected countries, identified good policies/measures taken to address specific needs of those who are left behind, as well as existing gaps, including lack of knowledge on how to identify and/or reach those furthest behind, and lack of national/local mechanisms for vulnerable groups to meaningfully participate in the VNR process. Download the invitation
Wednesday 10 July, 2019 - 1:15 to 2:45 pm in Conf 11

   
 

Conversation with authors of the global Civil Society Report: Spotlight on Sustainable Development 2019

   
 

Four years after the adoption of the 2030 Agenda the world is off-track to achieve the SDGs. Most governments have failed to turn the transformational vision of the 2030 Agenda into real policies for change. Even worse, xenophobia and authoritarianism are on the rise in a growing number of countries. But there are signs of change. The implementation of the 2030 Agenda requires more holistic and more sweeping shifts in how and where power is vested, including through institutional, legal, social, economic and political commitments to realizing human rights and ecological justice.
The Spotlight Report 2019 has as main topic “reshaping governance for sustainability”, and offers analysis and recommendations on the global governance that sustainability requires, as well as on how to strengthen inclusive and participatory governance to overcome structural obstacles and institutional gaps.
At the roundtable event on July 11th in New York authors of the Spotlight Report 2019 will present key findings and recommendations to participants for discussion. Download the invitation.
11 JULY 2019, 9:30-11:30 AM
BAHA'I INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY, CONFERENCE ROOM, 866 UN PLAZA

   
   
 

Participatory and Inclusive Tools to build capacities in Leaving No One Behind

   
 

Bringing the voices and experiences of those who have been left behind – through empowerment and participation – goes beyond enabling agency and towards developing a more inclusive and democratic society.
Come to listen to and discuss about recent tested methodological approaches and tools used in participatory research and programmes aiming to contribute to the ‘whole of society’ approach to follow up and review, ensuring broad inclusion of traditionally excluded groups to deliver the pledge to ‘leave no one behind’. Download the invitation
Thursday 11 July - 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM
Conference Room 5, United Nations Headquarters

   
   
 

National Reports on 2030 Agenda - What do they (not) tell us?

   
 

The side event will present and discuss the importance of national reporting on the 2030 Agenda, both by governments (VNRs) and civil society (“spotlight” or “shadow” reports).
The Committee for Development Policy (CDP) will present key findings of its analysis of 2018 VNRs. Voluntary national reviews (VNRs) are an important innovation as a United Nations process for follow-up to the adoption of development agendas, in particular the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
In the 2030 Agenda governments promised “accountability to our citizens”. Civil societies responded by multiplying their own national and regional “spotlight” reports and engaging with governments in a variety of ways about their findings. Social Watch helps to link those processes with the global follow-up and review. Download the invitation
11 JULY, 2019 AT 6 PM UN FF BUILDING
304 EAST 45TH STREET, 11TH FLOOR

   
   
 

Power to People: Civic space for climate justice and equality

   
 

Who are the people who are making our world more sustainable, just and inclusive and how can we ensure that they are protected and empowered by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development? Download the invitation
Friday 12 July, 1 PM to 3 PM
Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice

   
   
 

#SDG8 at the heart of Agenda 2030: How to make it happen?

   
 

Integrating several topics among those related to growth, employment, productivity as well as social dimension, SDG8 is per se a multidimensional goal, which plays a pivotal role within the general framework of the 2030 Agenda. Given the centrality of SDG8, reaching its targets is functional to guarantee a full and holistic accomplishment of the 2030 ambitions. Monitoring and measuring SDGs is crucial to guarantee accountability of policy makers vis-à-vis stakeholders. Trade unions are heavily involved in the SDG process at global, regional and national level. Download the invitation
12 July 2019, 6:30 - 8 PM
Conference Room F - UN Conference Building

   
   
 

Spotlight Report Sustainablity in Europe: Who is paying the Bill? (Negative) impacts of EU policies and practices in the World

   
 

The EU is still lacking a comprehensive strategy on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and its ambitious commitments to action. On average, the EU has one of the world’s worst environmental footprint per capita, with our unsustainable lifestyles based on resource and labour exploitation in other parts of the world. The economy of the future needs to take into account the environmental and social impact beyond our borders rather than living in the illusion of a low-carbon, resource efficient Europe that exports resource-intensive production to other parts of the world. At the launching event on July 15th in New York authors of the Spotlight Report Sustainability in Europe will present in some important policy areas where there is an urgent need for action, because the external effects of European policies are not sufficiently taken into account. Download the invitation
Launch Spotlight Report Sustainability in Europe
Who is paying the Bill ? (Negative) impacts of EU policies and practices in the World
CHURCH CENTER - 10TH FLOOR, NEW YORK
MONDAY 15TH OF JULY - 16.30-18.00H

   
   
 

Side Event on Reduced Inequalities (SDG 10)

   
 

Reducing inequalities (SDG10) is essential for overcoming extreme poverty (SDG 1) and a successful implementation of the 2030 Agenda as a whole. Many countries experience high and increasing inequalities. A reversal of this trend is not in sight. Therefore, it is paramount to take political action towards reaching this central goal of the 2030 Agenda. Strong social protection and redistributive policies significantly reduce inequality within countries. Therefore, it is essential to develop overarching strategies, build universal social protection systems as well as assess and increase redistributive capacities. These measures have to ensure that no one is left behind and equitable access to protection against risks and against poverty for all people is guaranteed.
The panel will discuss the most persistent barriers to a sustained reduction of inequalities and the contribution of fiscal and social protection policies to overcome inequalities worldwide. Download the invitation
July 15, 2019, 7 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.
Permanent Mission of Germany to the United Nations | Auditorium

   
   
 

The UN tackles inequality in the 21st century

   
 

DESA, UN-Habitat and UNDP will present their approaches to inequality in the 21st Century and discuss what can be done to address them in a new and dynamic context. The event will include a presentation of some of the emerging messages of the forthcoming flagship publications of these entities (including DESA’s World Social Report and UNDP’s Human Development Report). The interactive debate and Q&A that will follow should allow for a forward-looking discussion on the new opportunities and challenges in the debate on inequality and policy action to address it.  Download the invitation
16 July - 1 to 2:30 PM
United Nations S-2724

   
   
JOIN US TO ACHIEVE SOCIAL PROTECTION FOR ALL

GLOBAL COALITION FOR SOCIAL PROTECTION FLOORS - GCSPF

For comments, suggestions, collaborations contact us at:

anaclau@item.org.uy

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Download (pdf version).

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) place a key focus on the pivotal role that the reduction of inequalities plays for ending poverty. SDG 10 explicitly aims to Reduce Inequality within and among Countries, recognizing that development requires sharing progress more widely with everyone, including the most disadvantaged groups in society. However, inequality has been rising in many countries, a trend that has benefitted especially those at the very top. And even where it has not risen in recent years – such as in many Latin American countries that strengthened their social protection systems – disparities remain vast. In some of the most unequal countries, the richest 1 percent hold more than 15 percent of national income. In South Africa for example, the income share of the top 1 percent has almost doubled since 1990 and currently lies just under 20 percent (World Bank, 2016). Excessive concentration of income and wealth at the top – which is even underestimated since much of it is not observed in official accounts or surveys – lies at the root cause of high inequality. Income and wealth inequality often go hand-in-hand with inequalities along other dimensions such as opportunities, access to services and resources, and political representation.

Reducing inequalities is important for development because the adverse impacts of high inequality undermine efforts to overcome poverty. Inequality endangers social cohesion and peace, it negatively affects economic, social and political participation and undermines trust in institutions. High levels of inequality also have adverse socioeconomic effects such as lowering social mobility and undermining progress in health and education outcomes (OECD, 2018; Easterly, 2007; Wilkinson & Pickett, 2010). As such, reducing inequality also contributes to the achievement of other SDGs such as SDG 1 (No Poverty), 3 (Good Health and Well-Being), 5 (Gender Equality) and 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth). Similarly, global inequality remains intolerably high and exacerbates stubbornly high rates of extreme poverty (World Bank, 2018).

Reducing inequality requires redistribution

Strong social protection systems – alongside fair taxation and labour market policies that strengthen rights of workers for example through minimum wages and collective bargaining – are key instruments to address rising inequalities. In countries such as Sweden, Denmark and Brazil, the tax and transfer system reduces income inequality by up to 15 Gini points. This represents a reduction of 40 percent in Scandinavia and 25 percent in Brazil (Lustig, 2016; OECD, 2015.). The provision of public services further reduces inequalities for example in health and education. Upholding the right to social protection is all the more relevant in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and fragile settings where shocks occur more frequently and poor households are hit hardest by it. The objective, thereby, is to promote a shared idea of social justice: Article 22 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights establishes the right to social security for everyone as “indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality” (UN General Assembly, 1948).

Social protection and inequality have a reciprocal relationship. While redistribution through social protection has the potential to reduce inequality in income, opportunities and access to public services, a high level of inequality can at the same time erode public support for it because inequality divides societies. When comparing systems of social protection across countries, it becomes evident that they differ strongly in the degree of redistribution they achieve. Equally important as the level of public spending is the specific design of fiscal policy including social protection. As such, two countries with the same level of government revenues and social expenditure can achieve vastly different degrees of redistribution. The degree to which benefits reach the poor and excluded people in society, the mode of financing and the design of tax systems all play a central role. Surely, redistributing resources from the top of the distribution to the bottom is not the only objective of social protection systems. They also serve to smooth consumption over the life cycle and in times of income loss due to risks such as unemployment or sickness. Vertical redistribution deserves, however, particular emphasis when it comes to achieving SDG 10.

Social protection reduces risk and vulnerability

Broadly speaking, social protection schemes can be classified into three different types. As a risk pooling mechanism, social insurance is typically confined to members who pay contribution to a common fund and thus gain entitlement to contingent benefits. The primary objective of social insurance is to smooth consumption over the life course and in times of risk through income replacement. The most common schemes include pension, health and unemployment insurance. Often, the benefits an individual receives are linked to his or her previous contributions. For this reason and due to the confined membership, the degree of redistribution social insurance achieves is limited but, depending on the design, can be considerable. As such, even though high income earners may receive higher benefits upon retirement for example, contributions are often still levied progressively and function like an income tax. In health insurance, benefits respond to specific health needs, facilitating redistribution between the healthy and the sick. Similarly, in the absence of insurance, individuals may be thrown into poverty when a shock hits them so that the presence of insurance prevents inequality from widening. Further, many schemes require employers to contribute, thereby increasing fiscal space for redistribution.

Types of social protection schemes

Social insurance: is a mechanism to smooth consumption and protect members from risks such as unemployment, sickness or retirement. Typically, individual members receive benefits on the basis of previous contributions in the event that a risk occurs. Membership is often mandatory for a specified group such as formal sector employees.

Social assistance: are benefits that are granted to individuals or households without the need of prior contribution. Usually, eligibility is based on means-testing of need and funding comes from the general government budget. They are typically designed to cover a basic minimum and withdrawn as income rises.

Universal transfers: are given to anyone that fits certain criteria (such as citizenship, having children, a certain age or a disability) regardless of income or wealth. They are usually also paid out of general government revenue.

A challenge in the Global South is that social insurance schemes tend to be tied to participation in formal employment. This is why their scope and coverage are often limited – particularly for workers in non-standard and precarious forms of employment and workers in the informal economy. Social insurance schemes in LMICs thus tend to support the middle class. Increasing their redistributive capacities requires broadening their reach to include poorer people either through subsidizing them for those who are unable to contribute, providing higher replacement rates for low income earners and linking them more strongly with non-contributory schemes.

In contrast to insurance, receipt of social assistance is not tied to membership but is rather aimed at those in need because they fall under some income or poverty threshold. As such, their objective is to secure a minimum income and/or access to services rather than to maintain consumption close to previous levels as in the case of social insurance. They are typically financed out of the general budget. This is why social assistance tends to have a greater redistributive impact than insurance: it relies to a greater extent on the principle of solidarity, which states that everyone in society should pay according to their ability while receiving benefits according to their need.

The receipt of social assistance is sometimes tied to certain behavioural conditions such as sending one’s child to school and making use of primary health care services as in the case of conditional cash transfers (CCTs) or proving one’s job-seeking efforts as in the case of many unemployment assistance schemes. These conditionalities and the implications of means-testing bear the risk of excluding some of the most marginalized people, often women, who find it difficult to comply with conditionalities and administrative requirements – thereby undermining the very idea of providing a basic minimum. Targeting happens with exclusion and inclusion errors, administrative costs and may create stigma while furthermore promoting dependency if efforts to exit poverty are undermined by prospects of losing the transfer.

Universal schemes do not encounter such difficulties since they are not confined to narrow target groups but rather granted to all individuals that meet certain criteria regardless of own means, such as having children or being disabled. In principle, universal benefits are rights-based and reduce inequality by design: if everyone in an unequal society gets the same transfer, the spread in incomes will be reduced. In practice, their impact depends on the size of the transfer and will likely be smaller than that of targeted assistance since the latter ideally facilitates redistribution from the top to the bottom and, given the same budget, can be larger in size. For this reason, proponents of targeting argue that fiscal space – especially in countries with a tight budget constraint where high income earners often do not pay a fair share of taxes – is limited. In this sense, targeting provides means of channeling resources to those most in need and maximizing redistributive impact at lower costs. However, according to political economy arguments, universal transfers should receive higher budget allocations and be sustained by social consensus in the long run, thereby potentially yielding stronger redistributive results. Where poverty is widespread, universal transfers may further be more effective since the costs of targeting become disproportional. Which effect ultimately prevails is a country-specific empirical question.

Of course, social protection integrates a much wider set of policies than cash transfers and subsidies. Public services particularly in the field of health and education have huge redistributive impacts and allow disadvantaged people to improve their own starting position and break cycles of poverty that often persist across generations. Investing in social services that benefit the lower part of the distribution not only contributes to reducing inequalities in income but also those that run along other dimensions, such as gender, age and disability. Women and girls are not only at higher risk of being poor, in many countries they also suffer from lower access to education, receive less health care and are more likely to be found in unpaid care or low-paid precarious work environments. Social cash and in-kind benefits hence carry great potential for reducing gender inequality.

Social protection and domestic resource mobilization are inextricably linked

A key factor that determines the redistributive impact of a government’s fiscal policy is the way in which revenues are generated to finance social protection and the provision of public services. Raising revenues is often treated separately from expenditure policies although when it comes to reducing inequality, the two are inextricably linked. Tax-to-GDP ratios are much lower in LMICs than in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) region for example, which illustrates the overall lesser role of the state. Thus, apart from re-allocating public expenditures and restructuring debt, increasing fiscal space for social protection requires raising more revenues. This must entail a range of strategies including raising tax rates, reducing tax evasion and illicit financial flows and increasing foreign aid.

Strengthening capacities for domestic resource mobilization carries potential to foster sustainability and accountability of the government towards its own citizens. Tax systems differ widely in their redistributive capacity due to differences in tax composition and their individual design. Personal income taxes (PIT) have the largest redistributive capacity when rates rise progressively with income so that high earners shoulder a larger part of the burden. Social security contributions can be tied to PIT so that they, too, adhere to the principle of solidarity financing. Taxes on capital incomes, wealth or financial transactions could in principle have a highly progressive impact. In practice, however, rates are far lower than PIT in many countries which undermines principles of social justice.

As in the case of social insurance, the difficulty in LMICs is that economic structures tend to be highly informal. This is one reason for why tax systems in the Global South often depend to a much larger extent on indirect taxes such as Value Added Tax (VAT) that cannot take due account of the equity principle whereby richer individuals should not only pay larger absolute amounts into the common pool but also higher relative shares of their income and wealth. VAT taxes consumption and since the poor consume a much larger share of their income, it hurts them most – even if these resources are then used to finance progressive benefits.

Overall, the challenge of designing more progressive tax systems that align with social protection schemes in a common effort to reduce inequality and eliminate poverty is hence threefold. In the first place, more resources are needed to put in place comprehensive social protection systems. This means taxing corporations and high wealth individuals sufficiently. In the past decades, the tax burden on so-called high-net-worth individuals – and the corporations they own – has diminished continuously, not only because top marginal tax rates have decreased but also because the relevance of taxes on wealth, capital incomes and business profits are dwindling down. Secondly, there must be an end to elaborate schemes for shifting profits between jurisdictions that enable companies to avoid paying their fair share and instead shift the tax burden on labour. This global trend is one reason for why the rise in inequality has been accompanied by a decreasing share of labour in national income over the last decade – alongside declining levels of unionization and collective bargaining as well as stagnating wage levels. Thirdly, there should be recognition that it is an international responsibility to regulate international taxation and support countries to collect their fair share of taxes. Tax systems need to be more progressive in nature so that raising these extra resources contributes to reducing inequality rather than worsening it. Lastly, enforcement and compliance need to be strengthened to ensure a fair sharing of burden.

The need to strengthen tax systems in LMICs should also not divert attention away from the responsibility of the international community, where new financing mechanisms may be needed to ensure the realization of the global responsibility for social protection floors worldwide, especially in times of crises and disasters, and in countries that cannot yet finance social protection floors by their own means.

The way forward

Social protection and its progressive financing are essential pillars for achieving the SDGs, and in particular SDG 10 that aims to reduce inequality within and between countries. Building them requires concerted efforts. Certainly, there is no ‘right’ system that any one country should adopt. Nonetheless, the objective is clear: establishing social protection floors through equitable financing strategies is a priority in countries where these are not yet in place. Social protection needs to follow a rights-based approach. Countries that already have appropriate floors in place should aim for extending these towards building comprehensive social protection systems that not only alleviate poverty but protect against risks across the life course and provide equitable access to high quality public services.

Strategies for building such systems need to broaden contributory schemes to include people that cannot contribute (sufficiently) through own means, and integrate these with non-contributory schemes. Ideally, non-contributory schemes should aim for universality. In the light of constrained budgets and the pressing need to reduce inequality, however, targeted assistance to those in need may be an important step on the road towards achieving universality. Ultimately, social protection needs to be recognized as a human right for all not only in principle, but in implementation. In order to increase the redistributive capacity of social protection systems, financing strategies need to build and promote progressive taxation and equitable resource mobilization. This entails taxing the upper part of the distribution more both in relative and absolute terms. This especially holds for those at the very top and for ensuring that corporations pay their fair share of the burden.

Exploring international financing mechanisms beyond aid can greatly contribute to the common goal of reducing inequality within and between countries. Reducing tax evasion and avoiding excessive tax competition should be top priority on the global agenda since it requires international cooperation. Social protection budgets need to be protected in times of crises and disasters, which means that social protection spending must be adequate even during austerity periods. Further dialogue and cooperation are needed to develop global solidarity mechanisms.

References

Easterly, W. (2007). Inequality does cause underdevelopment: Insights from a new instrument. Journal of Development Economics, 84(2), 755–776. Retrieved from https://econpapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:deveco:v:84:y:2007:i:2:p:755-776

Lustig, N. (2016). Inequality and Fiscal Redistribution in Middle Income Countries: Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Indonesia, Mexico, Peru and South Africa. In Journal of Globalization and Development (Vol. 7). https://doi.org/10.1515/jgd-2016-0015

OECD. (n.d.). In it together : why less inequality benefits all. Paris: OECD Publishing.

OECD. (2018). A Broken Social Elevator? How to Promote Social Mobility. https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264301085-en

Wilkinson, R. G., & Pickett, K. (2010). The spirit level : why equality is better for everyone. Penguin Books.

World Bank. (2016). Poverty and shared prosperity 2016 : taking on inequality. World Bank.

World Bank. (2018). Piecing Together the Poverty Puzzle. https://doi.org/10.1596/978-1-4648-1330-6

Universal Declaration of human rights, Paris, 1948.

e-GCSPF # 24 - June 2019
   
 

Monitor new IMF commitments in your country

   
 

On June 14, 2019 the International Monetary Fund launched a new policy on the IMF and social spending two years after a critical assessment by its Independent Evaluation Office of the impact of IMF on social protection in member countries. The Managing Director of IMF, Christine Lagarde, launched the new policy in a speech during the International Labor Organization’s centenary conference in Geneva. This step can be good opportunity for advocates of social protection floors, a key element of the social spending that IMF now says it seeks to see countries provide in “ways that are adequate, yet also efficient and financed sustainably” (the policy paper and staff background papers are posted on the IMF web page). However, the degree to which decisions by Management and the Executive Board get implemented depend on how IMF now adapts its operations in individual countries. That is something in which GCSPF has a profound interest. Read more

   
   
 

Egypt Social Progress Indicators Reveal How Austerity Feeds Gross Inequalities

   
 

IMF-mandated austerity policies in Egypt are amplifying already severe inequalities and undermining the rights to health, education, housing and decent work for millions of Egyptians. These are the findings of the Egypt Social Progress Indicators (ESPI) project that has published the first independent, systematic review of socioeconomic development in Egypt.
The indicators point toward the erosion of the economic and social rights of the majority of Egyptians. They also show that, despite the official narrative of macroeconomic success encouraged by the government, the IMF and other international organizations, Egypt is not on track to achieve equitable and sustainable development by 2030.
The report finds that ordinary people are experiencing significant rights deprivations pertaining to decent work, quality accessible healthcare and education, adequate housing, economic empowerment and secure livelihoods. Reed more

   
   
 

The New Strategic Agenda is timid but not hopeless

   
 

The New Strategic Agenda 2019-2024 approved last 20 June, by the European Council fails to put social justice first and keeps the defence-based approach to borders and thus migration.
The protection of citizens, the top priority for the next five years, is outlined by the Council in the same way that you would expect to see it in any of the far-right parties’ manifestos. It is interpreted primarily as the defence of the integrity of the territory and praises the militarisation of borders. The social agenda is finally included among the priorities to be pursued, but it is described as a premise for enhancing the competitiveness of the single market rather than an urgent reaction to overcome the existential social and societal crisis.
However, a few improvements to the leaked draft of the document have been made. Although the underlying vision is still driven by the obsession with economic growth, the implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights is finally at least mentioned and attention to social issues is considered essential. Read more

   
   
 

Malaysia: We want absolute right for every worker, even migrants, to join a union

   
 

The Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) has denied the government’s accusation that it was against the ratification of the International Labour Organisation Convention 87 (C87).
Describing the human resources ministry as “stooping very low,” MTUC secretary-general J Solomon said the foundation of the United Nations convention was to give the absolute right to each and every worker to join a union, irrespective of whether he was a local or a migrant worker. Read more

   
   
   
   
JOIN US TO ACHIEVE SOCIAL PROTECTION FOR ALL

GLOBAL COALITION FOR SOCIAL PROTECTION FLOORS - GCSPF

For comments, suggestions, collaborations contact us at:

anaclau@item.org.uy

To stop receiving this newsletter send a message with the subject "unsubscribe" to:

anaclau@item.org.uy

On June 14, 2019 the International Monetary Fund launched a new policy on the IMF and social spending two years after a critical assessment by its Independent Evaluation Office of the impact of IMF on social protection in member countries. The Managing Director of IMF, Christine Lagarde, launched the new policy in a speech during the International Labor Organization's centenary conference in Geneva. This step can be good opportunity for advocates of social protection floors, a key element of the social spending that IMF now says it seeks to see countries provide in "ways that are adequate, yet also efficient and financed sustainably" (the policy paper and staff background papers are posted on the IMF web page). However, the degree to which decisions by Management and the Executive Board get implemented depend on how IMF now adapts its operations in individual countries. That is something in which GCSPF has a profound interest.

IMF regularly monitors all countries through what  it calls "surveillance", which is meant to encourage governments to follow sustainable economic and financial policies so as not to leave the country vulnerable to a domestic or international economic crisis. When crises do occur and governments lose access to external credit, IMF negotiates an "adjustment" program as a quid pro quo for new loans. Historically, social expenditures have suffered during these programs. Will social protection floors and other essential social services now be provided in adequate, sustainable and efficient ways in normal times and protected from cutbacks during crisis periods?  Only if there is political pressure to do so.

There are many tax and expenditure policies through which governments can seek to have sustainable budgets and to fix unsustainable ones, IMF interfaces with the domestic political economy of its member countries and works out deals that are politically acceptable in the country. Members of the Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors can help pressure IMF as well as their governments to give proper priority to social protection and other social expenditures in their countries. The new IMF policy can help us in this regard. 

GCSPF members should thus consider taking up the following suggestions:

GCSPF would welcome information from members on experiences in this regard, which could be circulated to the membership if contributing members so wished. If several members take up the suggestions, GCSPF could prepare periodic consolidated reports to our membership.

GCSPF members that engage with IMF staff and members of the Executive Board during the fund's Spring and Annual Meetings could also encourage IMF receptiveness to GCSPF advocacy at country level and full implementation of the new policy at headquarters level.

e-GCSPF # 23 - May 2019
   
 

Data Protection is Social Protection

   
 

Social-protection programs are supposed to do just what the name implies: protect those segments of society that are most in need. Demanding that beneficiaries effectively renounce their rights to personal privacy and data protection, as many governments are doing, amounts to just the opposite.
In recent decades, social assistance programs around the world have been strengthened to the point that they now benefit more than 2.5 billion people, usually the poorest and most vulnerable. But rising pressure to apply biometric technology to verify beneficiaries’ identities, and to integrate information systems ranging from civil registries to law-enforcement databases, means that social programs could create new risks for those who depend on them.
Private companies, donor agencies, and the World Bank argue that the application of biometric tools like iris and fingerprint scanning or facial and voice recognition, together with the integration of databases, will boost efficiency, combat fraud, and cut costs. And many governments seem convinced. Read the article here and the working paper here

   
   
 

Adequacy and sustainability of pension systems in the context of demographic ageing

   
 

While many governments and international institutions have framed pension reforms as an inescapable trade-off between adequacy and sustainability, unions insist that addressing the challenges of demographic ageing requires adopting a new overarching narrative, combining greater efforts to support labour market participation of excluded groups, enhanced revenue through progressive and innovative forms of taxation, and the guarantee of a decent income in retirement at the centre of this agenda.
The paper, published by ITUC, reviews several of the measures that States have taken with the intention of improving the sustainability of pension systems and evaluates their effectiveness. The paper highlights that many of the measures taken have had negative distributional impacts and have significantly compromised the primary function of pension systems: to provide a secure replacement income for people in old age and prevent their ability to fall into poverty. Read more

   
   
 

Distress or Destitution – why South Africa’s social grants ignore the masses of unemployed

   
 

It is remarkable that South Africa’s social security laws are still based on the pre-1994 Social Assistance Act, with tweaks. These laws were aimed at the well-being of white South Africans in the context of virtual full employment for white men. They do not accommodate the lifelong income poverty of millions marginalised from decent work.
The catch is that destitution or poverty, while it may be distressing, is not distress, as defined in the act. If you are poor, you are not distressed, but destitute. And for that state of being, there is no income support.
The allocation of social security, the right to social income is guaranteed to all by the Constitution, as entrenched as the right to healthcare, housing, water — and food. But there is no legislated provision for access to social income for poor working-age people, given the fact that the legislation was based on the assumption that apartheid policies virtually guaranteed full employment for the white male breadwinner (with short spells of possible unemployment funded by the Unemployment Insurance Fund). Read more

   
   
 

Webinar: Financing gender-responsive social protection

   
 

Why do the levels of resources spent on social protection matter to gender equality? How does the social protection financing “mix” (e.g. type of tax, other revenue etc.) matter to women’s outcomes? What are the main challenges, opportunities and initiatives underway on financing gender-responsive social protection?
The webinar will also discuss revenue-expenditure links and the role of gender budgeting initiatives in gender-responsive social protection financing.
Date: 6 June Register here

   
   
 

Franciscans International is recruiting UN representative in New York

   
 

Franciscans International is looking for a new colleague who will represent them at the United Nations in New York and support their work toward wider respect for human rights, peace, and environmental justice. If this feels like you, please send them an application by 23 June 2019. Read more

   

Social-protection programs are supposed to do just what the name implies: protect those segments of society that are most in need. Demanding that beneficiaries effectively renounce their rights to personal privacy and data protection, as many governments are doing, amounts to just the opposite.

In recent decades, social assistance programs around the world have been strengthened to the point that they now benefit more than 2.5 billion people, usually the poorest and most vulnerable. But rising pressure to apply biometric technology to verify beneficiaries’ identities, and to integrate information systems ranging from civil registries to law-enforcement databases, means that social programs could create new risks for those who depend on them.

Private companies, donor agencies, and the World Bank argue that the application of biometric tools like iris and fingerprint scanning or facial and voice recognition, together with the integration of databases, will boost efficiency, combat fraud, and cut costs. And many governments seem convinced.

While there is no systematic information available on the use of biometric technology in social-assistance schemes, a look at certain flagship programs suggests that it is already on the rise. In South Africa, 17.2 million beneficiaries of social grants receive biometric smart cards. In Mexico, the 55.6 million beneficiaries of Seguro Popular (public health insurance for the poorest citizens) must provide theirbiometric data to the authorities.

The world’s largest biometric database – Aadhaar – is in India. Because inclusion in Aadhaar is a prerequisite for access to several social programs, 95% of the country’s 1.25 billion inhabitants are already recorded. The provision of biometric data is also required to receive benefits in Botswana, Gabon, Kenya, Namibia, Pakistan, Paraguay, and Peru.

Biometric data stored in one social-protection program database can easily be linked to other systems using a common identifier, even those unrelated to social protection, such as for law enforcement or commercial marketing. In most European countries, however, such database integration is prohibited, owing to the threat it poses to privacy and data protection. After all, social-assistance programs require the processing of significant amounts of data, including sensitive information like household assets, health status, and disabilities.

In many of the developing countries that are expanding their social-protection and biometric-identification programs, the frameworks for protecting personal data are underdeveloped. Yet donors and government authorities often advocate the widest possible integration of databases, among public and private entities alike. For example, Nigeria, which aims to issue 100 million biometric e-ID cards, has a National Identity Database connected to various other databases, including those maintained by law enforcement agencies.

Pressure to share sensitive social-protection data, including biometric identifiers, with law enforcement – domestically, as well as internationally – is compounded by concerns about terrorism and migration. This pressure threatens not only basic privacy, but also civil liberties. Add the risk of negligent data disclosure or unauthorized third-party access – including by cybercriminals and hackers – and social-protection beneficiaries could also be exposed to stigmatization, extortion, or blackmail.

Then there is the possibility that access to sensitive social-protection data, including biometric information, will be given or sold to private companies. Social-protection authorities and private companies, such as MasterCard or Visa, frequently enter into commercial agreements to create smart cards for social-assistance programs or to arrange for businesses to accept those cards. For example, South Africa’s social-assistance biometric card is a MasterCard.

Worse still, such agreements – which often are not publicly disclosed – tend not to include mechanisms for redress in cases of abuse and misuse of information. Yet recent media reports suggest that these risks are considerable. For example, in Chile, millions of patients’ medical records – including those of HIV patients and women who had been sexually abused – were publicly exposed for almost a year.

Moreover, in South Africa, private companies used the information of millions of social-protection beneficiaries to increase corporate profits to the detriment of beneficiary interests. In India, a newspaper claimed that its reporters had gained unrestricted access to the Aadhaar database. Another report documented how Aadhaar numbers, with sensitive financial information, had been made publicly available on government websites.

The threat to social-protection beneficiaries is not eliminated even when data are accessible only to government. As the political scientist Virginia Eubanks recounts, in the United States, automated decision-making in social-welfare provision enables the government to “profile, police, and punish poor people.”

As technology continues to advance, these threats will only grow. For example, facial-recognition technology may enable governments to identify protesters who receive social assistance using the digital photographs they have provided in exchange for access to benefits. Malta, for example, is already considering using CCTV cameras with facial-recognition software to prevent “antisocial behavior.”

The lack of regard for privacy and data protection in social-assistance programs should not come as a surprise. These programs serve the most vulnerable groups – people who are already at a disadvantage in defending their rights. Entrenched stigma and anti-poor prejudices often prevent other, more privileged members of society from recognizing those risks, much less advocating on behalf of social-protection recipients. Many seem to believe that if you are receiving “free” benefits, you cannot also demand privacy.

Social-protection programs are supposed to do just what the name implies: protect those segments of society that are most in need. Demanding that these people effectively renounce their rights to personal privacy and data protection amounts to just the opposite.

That alone should be enough reason to lobby for the adoption of adequate legal frameworks, well-resourced data protection authorities, and, as a last line of defense, an independent judiciary and media. But if people need a stronger incentive, there is always self-interest, because the risks faced by the most vulnerable and disadvantaged today may well become reality for a much broader cross-section of society tomorrow.

By Magdalena Sepúlveda. Magdalena Sepúlveda is a senior research associate at the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development and a member of the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT). Previously, she was the United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. Magdalena Sepúlveda is member of the Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors (GCSPF).

More information: Is biometric technology in social protection programmes illegal or arbitrary? An analysis of privacy and data protection, Working Paper - ESS 59, 5 June 2018, Magdalena Sepúlveda Carmona; Extension of Social Security; International Labour Office, Geneva. Download the pdf version here.

Source: Project Syndicate.

e-GCSPF # 22 - April 2019
   
 

The legal, political, economic and moral imperatives to finance social protection for all

   
 

The GCSPF launches a statement of its position on financing Social Protection on Thursday, 11 April, 2019, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the International Labour Organization (ILO).  Read more

   
   
 

100 Years of ILO: Interview with Ebenezer Durojaye

   
 

The ILO established the right to social security and today recommends Social Protection Floors. That move is crucial, says Ebenezer Durojaye.
To celebrate 100 years of the International Labour Organization (ILO), the GCSPF launched a statement outlining the path towards universal social protection for all. We talked to Ebenezer Durojaye of the GCSPF about why social security remains one of the most important issues of our time, and about the ILO’s role in advancing the right to social security in the past and present. Read more

   
   
 

Accountability Dimension: social protection as a tool for the reduction of inequalities

   
 

The side event was organised both to discuss emerging challenges on social protection as a tool for the reduction of inequalities and to look at both conceptual issues and practical solutions. The presenters explored the accountability dimension in designing and delivering social protection schemes; the links between social protection and human rights in reducing inequalities; and the role of civil society in social protection accountability monitoring. The side event was sponsored by the Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors and coorganised by SOSTE, the Finnish Federation for Social Affairs and Health, The International Council on Social Welfare (ICSW), The International Association of the Schools of Social Work (IASSW), The African Platform for Social Protection (APSP), UNESCO-MOST, and The Center for Economic and Economic and Social Rights (CESR).
The focus on accountability was seen as a practical step towards strengthening the issue- based approaches of the Commission on Social Development, taking account of Agenda 2030’s emphasis on universality and human rights and mindful of its call to the global community to assess, monitor, evaluate, share and discuss progress towards the achievement of its goals and targets. Read more

   
   
 

Labor Protests in Jordan 2018

   
 

Phenix Center for Economic and Informatics Studies issued a Report on the Labor Protests in Jordan 2018.
The continuing decline of labor protests over the years 2014-2018 can be attributed to a number of factors, most importantly the fact that the government and most employers were not serious in meeting worker demands. There was often direct and indirect pressure from senior management within business establishments or from the government and its various institutions. In addition, most wage workers in Jordan are still deprived of the right to form unions to defend their interests. This issue has two main causes. The first is labor legislation, which deprives broad segments of workers from the right to organize a union. Jordan’s regulations for professional categorization specify which professions are allowed to form unions, sets the number of trade unions at 17 and has not allowed any new labor unions to be established for more than four decades. Read more

   
   
 

Webinar: Financing gender-responsive social protection

   
 

Why do the levels of resources spent on social protection matter to gender equality? How does the social protection financing “mix” (e.g. type of tax, other revenue etc.) matter to women’s outcomes? What are the main challenges, opportunities and initiatives underway on financing gender-responsive social protection?
The webinar will also discuss revenue-expenditure links and the role of gender budgeting initiatives in gender-responsive social protection financing.
Date and time: 6 June - 1 PM GMT+1 Register here

   
   
JOIN US TO ACHIEVE SOCIAL PROTECTION FOR ALL

GLOBAL COALITION FOR SOCIAL PROTECTION FLOORS - GCSPF

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The statement “The legal, political, economic and moral imperatives to finance social protection for all” with the position of the Global Coalition on financing Social Protection was launched on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the International Labour Organization (ILO), on 11 April 2019. The statement is here.

Read the Executive Summary, pdf version available here.

Read the Statement, pdf version available here.

11 April 2019

Executive Summary

Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors (GCSPF)

Download the Executive Summary (pdf version)

The first Sustainable Development Goal of the global agenda for development adopted for the period 2016 to 2030 – “Transforming Our World” – establishes the targets to end poverty in all its forms, countries being enjoined, among other actions, to “implement nationally appropriate social protection systems and measures for all, including floors, and by 2030 achieve substantial coverage of the poor and the vulnerable” (Goal 1, target 3).

Aside from the essential questions that arise as to the definition and content of national social protection systems and floors1, the major focus of discussion with regard to achieving target 1.3 has become the affordability and the means to finance social protection.

These matters have been addressed for some time by the International Labour Organization, and recently by both the World Bank2 and the International Monetary Fund3.

In this statement, the Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors elaborates its position on the subject of financing social protection. This follows on its own earlier work on the issue - notably a 2017 global study of the fiscal size of national social protection gaps4 and a 2019 review of the emerging IMF framework on social expenditure5.

The Global Coalition distinguishes four imperatives to finance social protection:

1. The moral and humanitarian arguments, which rest on the global commitment to end poverty articulated in Sustainable Development Goal 1 and on the well-known benefits of social security in reducing inequality and exclusion and elevating dignity, hope and ambition.

2. The established legal obligations of States to apply ILO Conventions, to follow ILO Recommendations, and to respect and protect human rights, notably the right to Social Security enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 1966, as well as to ensure through every means possible the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals that were adopted unanimously by the Member States of the United Nations in 2015 to transform our world. Furthermore, the ILO Recommendation 202 provides specific and concrete guidance on the components of social protection that are needed as agreed unanimously by the ILO Member States.

3. The economic rationale rests on the evident requirement to dedicate social policy for social protection to ensure that economic benefits are deliberate; failure to target social policy and invest purposefully in the social sphere raises the cost of social protection due to inefficiencies.

4. From all the foregoing arguments, it follows that political will must be mobilized to ensure the investment in social protection. At the same time, political will is independent of economic development and countries can take action at all levels of income. There is no trade-off between growth and redistribution; redistribution has historically led to growth. Planned and considered social protection requires systematic governmental policies and action.

The 2017 Global Coalition study of the fiscal size of national social protection gaps showed that only 21 of 116 countries would require increases in spending above 4 per cent of GDP to close their gap. A small number among them would require at least short-term international financial support amounting to about 0.09 per cent of estimated global annual military expenditures, which is affordable. A global solidarity mechanism has been proposed and is discussed in the paper.

Coherent systems of large and stable risk pools can be created on the basis of existing informal social protection schemes and other existing resources as well as additional new resources from a range of schemes and their various combinations, resulting in greater reliability, fairness and equality.

Universal benefits are the most efficient means to protect the very poorest, because targeting and means tests are very costly and highly error-prone and they violate human rights. Universal benefits should be funded through progressive and effective taxation on income, and not on taxation of consumption, which is regressive and defeats the purpose of protecting the poor.

To sustain effective social protection systems, governments must strive for effective revenue collection and efficient disbursement, which in turn requires a regimen of progressive, corruption-free taxation, based on financial transparency, deterrence of tax evasion, and a functional administration with good governance. International initiatives to reform taxation and technical assistance to reduce uncaptured taxes and to reform tax systems that incentivize largely exported gains at the expense of national expenditure priorities have a role in building sustainable systems. Basic spending on social protection must be preserved in times of national hardship and economic stress and loan repayment arrangements should reflect its precedence in all circumstances.

Getting to universal social protection requires swift action by national governments and global institutions. To this end, the Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors requests a number of specific actions on the part of national governments and parliaments; international financial institutions; and the United Nations system and several specialized agencies. The critical role of civil society and trade unions in democratization and strengthening the social contract is stressed. They have a transformative role in the realization of the right to social security. To this end, the Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors pledges a number of actions on behalf of civil society and trade unions.

Notes:

1 These questions are already largely addressed by the substance of the ILO’s Recommendation 202 on Social Protection Floors of 2012.

2 The World Bank Group, forthcoming. “Risk-Sharing for a Diverse and Diversifying World of Work”, A Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice White Paper (Draft, November 20, 2018).  See also World Bank Group, 2019. “Strengthening Social Protection”, chapter 6 in The Changing Nature of Work, World Development Report 2019. Washington, D.C.: International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, pp. 105-121.

3 Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) of the International Monetary Fund, 2017. “The International Monetary Fund and Social Protection”, 2017 Evaluation Report. Washington, D.C.: The International Monetary Fund. See also individually authored articles in “Age of Insecurity: Rethinking the social contract”, Finance & Development (quarterly publication of the IMF), Vol. 55, No. 4: 14-15 (December). Note that the expected IMF’s New Social Expenditure Framework which was the subject of consultations in 2018 (see https://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/consult/2018/socialspending/) is forthcoming at this writing.

4 Mira Bierbaum, Cäcilie Schildberg and Michael Cichon, 2017. “Social Protection Floor Index – Update and Country Studies”. Berlin: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) for the Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors.

5 Peter Bakvis, Miriam Brett and Barry Herman, 2019. “The IMF’s new policy framework on social protection”,
A view from the Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors (16 January 2019). Accessible on 9 April 2019 at https://www.socialprotectionfloorscoalition.org/2019/01/the-imfs-new-policy-framework-on-social-protection/.

11 April 2019

The legal, political, economic and moral imperatives to finance social protection for all

“Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality”.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), Article 22.

Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors (GCSPF)1

Download the Statement (pdf version)

More than half of the world’s population is still denied a life in dignity and social security: the GCSPF calls for action on social protection financing to deliver on the human right to social protection at a time when the world is richer than ever before and that global wealth continues to grow

The global Community is claiming progress in the battle against poverty. The World Bank states that in 2019 just about 10 per cent of the global population lives in abject poverty when measured against the international poverty line of US$ 1.90 per person, measured in purchasing power parity (PPP) dollars.  That poverty line does not, however, allow a life in dignity virtually anywhere on earth2.  If we were to assume that a poverty line of about US$ PPP 3.20 were closer to a minimum income that most of the world’s poor would need in order to live, then the global poverty headcount approaches 30 per cent of the global population. Moreover, if we were to assume a poverty line of about US$ 6.00, which is close to regional average national poverty lines in Asia and Latin America, then about 50 per cent – fully half - of the world’s population would still live in poverty.  Despite claims to the contrary, eradicating poverty remains an unattained objective of global social justice.

And yet, poverty measured in monetary terms is merely the tip of the iceberg of global social misery that can be easily seen, because we dare to take the measure of it and to label it. Inextricably associated with poverty are inequality, exclusion and insecurity.  More than half of the world’s population suffers from at least one of the three scourges that are products of human society and that obstruct the path to social justice. They are:

1. inequality and exclusion from mainstream economic activity by gender, race, ethnicity or religion;
2. debilitating social insecurity; and
3. the inhumanity of want3.

Millions of avoidable premature deaths from birth to adulthood – and billions of people living with ill health – are telling indicators of the burden of global misery. Children and older persons suffer more than people in active age, women more than men, and ethnic minorities more than majorities.

Importantly, the three other major victims of these scourges are dignity, hope and ambition. Exclusion, insecurity and the state of want rob billions of persons of their competencies, productive contributions and potential achievements.

The moral imperative to finance universal social protection

The moral and humanitarian imperative is the most evident rationale to ensure the resources to finance social protection for all, given especially that the world’s governments have agreed that it is a main means to achieve global poverty eradication in the sustainable development agenda they adopted to transform our world.

We have known for more than a century what can be done. Social protection effectively prevents and reduces poverty, inequality, exclusion and insecurity. The overarching objective of social protection is to provide social security for people as they confront risks in an uncertain world and free them from the indignity of economic insecurity. Under the new global Sustainable Development Agenda, it is the most important enabling factor for a just transition.

Yet there are other imperatives to deliver universal social protection, notably the legal obligation of States defined in international standards and instruments.

The legal imperative to finance universal social protection

Since the first social security Convention adopted by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in 1919, more than 100 years ago, a growing number of Conventions on social security, among them Convention 102 on Social Security (Minimum Standards) of 1952 that provides a comprehensive framework for the design of social security systems, have widened and deepened the force of international law, and a number of Recommendations, among them Recommendation 202 on Social Protection Floors of 2012, have provided a corpus of guidance to Member States on how to meet their State obligations.

At mid-century, the right to social security was enshrined as Articles 22 and 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and as Article 9 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) (see insert).  Many countries have included that right in their constitutions or national codes of law in addition to having ratified the ILO Conventions.

In this way, the international community of nations has gradually and progressively defined the content of the universal right to social protection over the last century.

Article 22.
Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.

Article 25.
(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948

Article 9.
The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to social security, including social insurance.

International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1966 (ICESCR)

The two recent international instruments, ILO’s Recommendation 202 on National Floors of Social Protection of 2012 and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of 2015 adopted unanimously by the Member States of the ILO and UN respectively now embody the important international consensus that social protection – at least at a basic level – must be afforded to everyone. Both instruments are, at the same time, ambitious and pragmatic instruments that set the way forward to universal social protection.

The ILO’s Recommendation 202 of 2012 provides clear guidance on national policy dedicated to progress in the social sphere. In particular, the definition of basic social protection in the ILO Recommendation refers to a social protection ‘floor’ that should be available to all and upon which higher levels of security should be built for as many people as possible, as soon as possible. The floor and the additional levels of protection that must be built thereafter together create a comprehensive national social protection system.

The floor of any national social protection system should comprise four basic social security guarantees – income security during childhood, adult years and old age, as well as guaranteed access to essential health care.  The term ‘guarantees’ underlines that the focus is on the outcome in terms of social security that can be achieved by different types of benefits and different types of schemes (whether they be social insurance, social assistance, universal benefits or labour market measures).  The overriding objective is to provide security to all who need protection4,  Article 4 of the Recommendation defines income security, stating “these guarantees should ensure that all in need have access to essential health care and basic income security which together secure effective access to goods and services defined as necessary at the national level”.  Income security, thereby defined as the ability to access essential goods and services, can be achieved through cash transfers and/or transfers in kind and/or in the form of access to essential social services.  Health security is a situation where all people have access to essential health care goods and services.

In sum, ILO Recommendation 202 and the SDGs represent an agreed commitment by the global community for universal social protection coverage that places an obligation on States to extend social protection to all residents.  For all international organizations acting on behalf of the global community of nations, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the international development banks, these instruments lay down concrete and unquestionable guidelines in regard to the advice and financial support they must deliver to countries.

The SDGs commit the community of nations to a wide social agenda, justly titled “Transforming our world”. The main social protection targets are:

1.3: Implement nationally appropriate social protection systems and measures for all, including floors, and by 2030 achieve substantial coverage of the poor and the vulnerable, and
3.8: Achieve universal health coverage, including financial risk protection, access to quality essential health-care services and access to safe, effective, quality and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all.

Further references to social protection are stipulated in goal 5 on gender equality and goal 10 on reducing inequality.

Accordingly, also, the SDGs demand, inter alia, quality education, clean water and sanitation, and affordable and clean energy, each an important goal of sustainable development, e.g.:

4.1: By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes.

Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, 2015

The community of nations has adopted a moral, political and social compass in declaring that the right for everyone to live in social security is a basic human right.  Unfortunately, there is substantial variation between governments and between international institutions; some appear to deviate from the guidelines regarding the enjoyment of that right more than others. This call to action by the Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors seeks to influence the course of these practices.

The economic imperative to finance universal social protection

We know that social progress cannot be driven exclusively by economic growth policies. If the only social progress is that which derives indirectly and quite incidentally, as a quasi-side effect, from economic growth, any improvement is slow and uneven. We know that the benefits of economic growth do not trickle down to all people within societies.  Measurable social progress needs a dedicated policy tool directed at the social sphere that helps to jump-start social development, or to accelerate its rate of growth, in order to achieve results much faster than by waiting for the possible, uncertain and haphazard positive social side-effects of economic growth.

Social protection can achieve effective and efficient redistribution in a shorter time than any other policy means.  All societies with highly developed economies have substantial public social protection systems – even in countries where these systems, for political reasons, are relentlessly subjected to neoclassical market-oriented pressures to downsize or privatize – and all of them started to develop these systems at early stages of their economic growth, which contributed significantly to their economic development.  The global community has acknowledged that fact and reiterated the central role of social protection for economic development for more than half a century.

It is a reality that not only most countries can afford social protection, but that most countries cannot afford not to invest in social protection.  No country will be able to realize its economic potential if it does not invest in the health, education and the material security of its population.  A significant part of such investments is typically channelled through social protection. Lack of formal social protection is associated with low levels of labour market formalization, which is itself a major barrier to workforce productivity and hence the overall productive capacity of the economy.

The political imperative to finance universal social protection

The political will to mobilize the national resources needed to provide universal social protection must be summoned to meet the legal and economic imperatives to finance social protection. Virtually all developed economies have substantial social protection systems, based on expenditures of about 20 to 30 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), or more5.

All of these economies introduced extensive social transfers at a stage at which they were relatively poor, when compared to the resources they command today. Yet there is no evidence that they gave up much growth, if at all, as they combated poverty, inequality and insecurity through the establishment of social policies. Those circumstances serve to refute the often-quoted notion of a “trade-off” between growth and redistribution. To the contrary, those States with the highest levels of social protection expenditure have today the most robust labour markets and resilient economies6.

The fact that countries at the same level of per capita income have a wide range of social protection expenditure (measured as a percentage of GDP) demonstrates clearly that social expenditure is not merely determined by their level of economic development, but by their degree of political will.  Indeed, societies exercise considerable discretion when deliberating the fiscal and financial size of their social protection systems. We also see a wide variation of poverty and inequality indicators between countries at similar levels of per capita GDP. The reason is that the private economy – left to itself – does not develop conduits for redistribution. The only protection that arises in that case relates to the spontaneous informal support of the intra-family, intra-kinship kind to counter vulnerability, which cannot and does not cover entire populations, and which is uncertain and haphazard. Government action is required to make redistribution happen systematically.

The fiscal size of national social protection gaps

The most comprehensive global study of the fiscal size of national social protection gaps - the absolute minimum of resources required to close gaps in the financing of social protection floors - comes from a recent study published by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) for the Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors7.  The study provides calculations of only the estimated fiscal size of protection gaps, that is the total additional cost of transfers and services of perfectly targeted social protection systems whose administrative cost is absorbed already by existing effective and efficient national administrations. The figures thus represent only the absolute minimum level of additional investment in social protection for the countries included in the study. To close protection gaps in reality the cost may have to be increased by additional administrative cost. Nonetheless, these figures provide an indication of the dimension of the fiscal challenge that countries may face when seeking to close the gaps in their social protection floors. Importantly, the results indicate that some level of effective social protection is affordable everywhere.

The authors of the study developed an index of the cost that countries would need to address if they were to close income security and health security gaps through the theoretically cheapest possible means, for example through perfectly targeted income transfers to the poor. The results of the latest update of the Index indicate that 116 countries would be able to close their social protection gaps with increases in national social protection spending of less than 4 per cent of GDP; in the case of 32 countries, they could close the gap with an increase below 1 per cent of GDP.  Only 21 countries would require increases in spending above 4 per cent of GDP to close their social protection gaps8. Among these, a small number of countries would likely require some temporary international support to finance the development of adequate social protection floors - at least in the short-term - before they are expected to build up sufficient domestic fiscal capacity.  Support amounting to about 50 per cent of their social protection cost, ranging annually between US$10 and 15 billion, could be needed. That amount is equivalent to about 0.09 per cent of the estimated global military spending of about US$1.7 trillion9, a solidarity investment that many would argue would yield a much higher peace dividend than the military spending is likely to achieve.  Clearly, this is a level of international solidarity that we are able to afford.

Clearly also, however, before countries resort to international solidarity, they will have to organize national solidarity in the form of effective risk pools which allow people to share the cost of social protection as fairly as possible within the resources that they can already command.

Protecting people by creating coherent systems of large and stable risk pools

There is no doubt that the implementation of social protection floors in low- and medium-income countries will require substantial additional investments in social protection. All social protection systems are essentially risk pools that need to be endowed with adequate resources to be able to fulfill their protective promises.

Nevertheless, not all resources needed for better social protection need to be “new” resources. Extending or introducing formal social protection systems does not really create as much new redistribution as is often maintained.  To a large extent, formal social protection systems serve to formalize existing informal intra-family and inter-family transfers – a fact which is rarely (if ever) appreciated.  Other than in the dire circumstances that strike entire populations, people have not and do not let their families and clans, friends or neighbours die of hunger. Informal transfers have normally ensured the survival of people who fall on hard times. Formal transfers replace such informal transfers and, importantly, stabilize the certainty of access to adequate and future resources. Informal social protection systems are vulnerable to shocks, as the risk pools are small. Small risk pools inevitably entail that members of poor risk pools receive less and less reliable protection than members of rich risk pools.  Enlarging, and hence stabilizing, social protection risk pools beyond family and kin requires their formalization. Reducing vulnerability through formalization necessarily creates transaction costs in the form of administration, but it also leads uncontrovertibly to higher levels of reliability, fairness and equality. Formalizing social protection also protects the classical “sharers” of income against the major unpredictable informal costs of protecting people close to them.

The creation of large risk pools can take the form of national tax-financed transfer systems or of social insurance schemes that mandatorily cover subgroups of the active population and their dependants.  Social insurance schemes are independent parastatal organizations that collect their own earmarked resources for social protection in the form of contributions from employers and workers.  These contributions may be easier to collect than taxes and allow the government to focus the use of general revenues for the protection of those who cannot contribute, or to cover risks that cannot be insured.  Social insurance schemes have a contractual arrangement with insured persons. These contracts are generally defined by law and stipulate the nature, amount and structure of benefits that are due to insured persons when the insured events arise (such as sickness, unemployment, disability, and old age).  Most social insurance schemes enjoy the support of their contributors and insured persons, who regard them as more reliable and responsive than state systems that often become underfunded, or commercial, profit-making private sector schemes.  Most national social protection systems consist of combinations of tax-financed and contribution-financed benefit schemes. The well-designed and financed combination of risk pools of different sizes allows the achievement of universal protection of all residents. It also provides the basis for flexible and progressive improvements in levels of protection for those who seek – and are willing to finance - higher levels of protection.

What is the most efficient way to protect the poorest?

Within systems of national risk pools, the effective protection of the poorest in society often poses particular challenges in many societies.  The debate whether tax-financed benefits should be targeted to the poor or whether benefits should be universal has become unnecessarily controversial and should become less so once the alternatives are seen in a rational overall human rights and fiscal policy context.

First of all, targeting cannot be perfect in reality.  Rigorous means-testing to determine individual eligibility for benefits would substantially increase the amount of information needed as well as the frequency with which it is collected, given that personal incomes are often volatile, fluctuating around the eligibility line, and dipping below it for unpredictable durations. Collecting detailed information of this type raises the cost of programmes.  Rationing of benefits through individual means-tests not only triggers substantial administrative cost but often dramatically increases the overall cost of delivering the benefits.

As a result, many governments have taken to replacing actual means tests with what is termed a ‘proxy means test’ (PMT) – a method that uses poverty-related variables (e.g. the worth of observable or reported assets) to predict whether individuals qualify for a benefit. Whereas proxy means tests could have a lower administrative cost than individual means-testing, they must, however, constitute a violation of human rights if they exclude people in actual need. The right to an adequate standard of living is personal, individual and real. It is not a proxy.  In one of many explorations into this issue, Development Pathways points to evidence that exclusion errors can amount to 50 per cent of the otherwise targeted population, which means that the PMT is no more statistically valid than a coin toss10. The World Bank refers to inclusion and exclusion errors of roughly 30 to 40 per cent11 which are similarly intolerably large. Based on these estimates, no one would disagree that the use of PMT means that there are – inevitably and systematically – people who are excluded from benefits who need and deserve help.

As targeting systems are fraught with exclusion errors and the means of targeting are themselves associated with creating intolerable stigma, many countries resort to more universal systems.  Depending on the nature of an existing protection system, making benefits universal does not necessarily introduce large additional cost.  The authors of a recent ILO paper have shown that a basic set of universal categorical cash benefits would require about 4 per cent of GDP in 57 lower income countries12. This is not negligible, but represents only the gross additional cost. If a country already has a targeted system, then the net additional cost of switching to a universal system would be lower, given that it would be offset by dismantling the costly existing administrative system for determining and monitoring eligibility.

Universal benefits – indeed, any benefit system included in the government budget – must be funded through effective and progressive tax systems. In contrast to this, if additional tax revenue to cover the cost of a protection system is collected from a tax on consumption, for example through a value added tax, it will be regressive, reducing and possibly even eliminating the net benefit to the poor, who will have to pay that tax when they purchase taxed goods or services.

A progressive addition to the income tax paid by earners in the formal economy can assure that the poor receive the intended benefits13. A progressive income tax would also facilitate the clawback of a part or all of the redistributed resources from people who might not need them as urgently as others. While targeting of benefits may help save only a fraction of a few percentage points of GDP in transfers at the price of creating social stigma and excluding rightful beneficiaries, an effective tax collection system can help to collect much more additional resources than a means-test can ever save.  It is also the soundest basis for governments to have the flexibility required to meet the social protection needs of their populations, and to ensure that social policy is gender-responsive and shock-responsive, taking account of potential economic, environmental and humanitarian shocks.

Sustaining effective social protection systems

Social expenditure is an investment of public resources not only in social development, but in economic growth and development. In the long-run, properly designed and managed social protection systems pay for themselves.

In order for resources to be invested, two conditions must be met. First, revenues must be collected. Second, governments must have the capacity for effective and efficient disbursement.  For these two conditions to be met, we need fair and progressive tax regimes and corruption-free tax collection and benefit distribution mechanisms. Without a well-resourced state or parastatal entities that can operate sound redistribution, only the rich and powerful ‘few’ will be socially secure and benefit from economic growth. It makes sense to invest in a properly functioning and equitable income-tax and contribution collection mechanism. Tackling tax evasion and strengthening financial transparency could also significantly contribute to the sustainable financing of universal social protection – as it is currently estimated that assets of rich individuals alone worth some 10 per cent of the world’s GDP are held in tax havens14. It also makes sense to couple a tax-focused policy with additional job creation, which widens the tax base, and to include incentives to draw more people into the formal economy15.

In the same vein, the political sustainability of social protection systems will be undermined if public administrations are not capable of delivering benefits reliably, swiftly and without corruption to those who are eligible.  This clearly requires major attention be paid to national and global governance as a condition for exercising and maintaining political will, as well as for collecting and disbursing national revenues.

International support for the very poorest countries unable to kick-start the economic benefit social protection at their low stage of economic capacity could come through a global solidarity mechanism, such as the idea of a Global Fund for Social Protection put forward by former UN Special Rapporteurs Olivier de Schutter and Magdalena Sepulveda16. If developed, a global solidarity mechanism could support the financing of technical assistance on social protection in low-income countries where limited resources exist at national level; it could also support the financing of benefits themselves at points when sudden excessive demand for social protection is experienced due to economic, environmental, or humanitarian shocks. In addition to such a specific fund, existing development assistance could better contribute to reducing national financing gaps for social protection. Only a small portion of Official Development Assistance (ODA) tends to be directed towards social protection, and in such cases, assistance is often used to support small-scale social protection projects and highly targeted schemes, rather than contributing to the gradual development of adequate, sustainable social protection systems17.

Beyond international support, and prior to any assistance from any fund-based or ODA assistance, States must first identify ways to raise revenues or reprioritize public expenditure in order to ensure a more adequate and sustainable fiscal space for social protection. Enhancing progressive taxation and tackling tax evasion would also contribute significantly to budget shortfalls. Expanding contributory revenues for social security coverage, along with policies to increase formal employment, would also be helpful in this regard18. A recent Asian Development Bank publication demonstrates that many developing countries have realistic options at their disposal at the national level to close the resource gaps19. The authors of the study found that in 12 of 16 Asian countries studied, tackling even the wider social agenda of the SDGs (including social transfers, health, education and essential services) would require an increase in government resources of less than 20 per cent over the next decade or so. In short, while some countries are so poor that they cannot offer much protection without an arguably modest contribution from the international community, the vast majority of societies in the world can already afford a solid level of social protection and of access to social services.

Nevertheless, resource mobilization requires sustained political will and long-term fiscal planning and preparation to meet the inevitable but unpredictable economic challenges that arise20. In times of crisis (such as financial and/or economic crisis, natural or climate change-related catastrophes, influx of refugees and migrants, among others) social protection expenditures need to be maintained and increased. Governments can cope with added social protection needs from such emergencies to a point, which differs according to the state of overall development and the historical ability to build up national reserves. International mechanisms are necessary beyond that point to address such crises, including quickly disbursable grants or loans on appropriate terms. Whereas a range of such resources is already available21, there is still room to expand them and to reset prequalification terms to draw on them.

Furthermore, low-income and low-middle-income developing countries do not have the capacity to capture all taxes due that presently escape their fiscal systems without help. While some progress has been made, further internationally coordinated efforts are required to effectively reduce tax evasion of multi-national enterprises as well as of wealthy individuals and families. Technical assistance would also help countries design systems that no longer offer opportunities for legal, but unethical, tax avoidance schemes; for example, that no longer offer competing tax incentives to foreign investors that erode the national tax base and activate a fiscal “race to the bottom”. We also need new global initiatives on international taxation in the context of the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and the Bank for International Settlements, in addition to initiatives of the OECD.

It should also be noted that one reason that social protection systems are stressed in periods of crisis is due to the priority given to uninterrupted repayments to government creditors during the time when expenditures should focus on domestic needs. It is timely to seek recalibration of the risk-sharing between involved parties and to repurpose interactions to prioritize sustainable financing and uninterrupted provision of the more necessary social protection. The obligation to protect people in times of hardship and to maintain the services that are the precise objective of loans must take precedence over any obligation in respect of debt repayments when government revenues contract. At the same time, we should not wait for sovereign bankruptcy and measures of last resort to protect spending for basic social protection. Proposals to design loans and bonds which automatically suspend, postpone, or cancel debt servicing during periods of economic stress have many supporters, but have yet to be put into practice22. Moreover, the conditions required of countries in quid pro quo for receiving official loans during crises and recovery periods must protect the social protection floor and increase it as required to address the crisis-related human needs; for the international community to act otherwise would be antithetical to international commitments and human rights, as well as to the purpose of social protection itself.

Getting to universal social protection

Swift action by a number of political actors in national governments and global institutions is needed to ensure that the human right to social protection can be universally enjoyed. To this end, the Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors demands that the following actions be taken by key official players.

National governments and parliaments

In order to initiate and/or build national social protection systems, governments and parliaments need to apply appropriate levels of national capacity and resources; to this end, national governments and parliaments are requested to:

1. Develop, implement and enforce strong legislative frameworks for national social protection systems, and any other schemes that ensure universal, non-discriminatory protection, reliable and adequate benefit entitlements as a right;
2. Create and/or facilitate representative and transparent national social dialogue and societal consultation that is comprehensive and inclusive on the design and implementation of national social protection floors and systems;
3. Build the administrative and governance capacities to operate effective, responsive and efficient national protection systems;
4. Mobilize the necessary resources for social protection by increasing fiscal space through progressive forms of taxation that favour the taxation of income over the taxation of consumption, tackling tax evasion and illicit financial flows, and supporting access to formal employment, formalizing employment whenever possible, and introducing or expanding social insurance schemes for those who can contribute, among other measures;
5. Ensure consistency between social protection policies and other social and economic policies such that they together pursue common and coherent overall social policy goals; for example, policies for the reduction of informality and introduction of minimum wage levels to abolish in-work poverty should be implemented in parallel with the availability of a comprehensive set of social services in order to free the social assistance resources for the protection of people who are out of work or not available for work by reason of age, maternity, sickness, or disability.
6. Assume and contribute to international responsibility to ensure that social protection floors can be maintained or expanded in resource-poor countries, as well as during crisis situations in hard hit countries (i.e. due to natural, climate-related and humanitarian shocks).

International Financial Institutions

The World Bank, regional development banks and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), are requested to:

1. Clarify their economic, financial and loan policies with respect to the unequivocal role of social protection as an investment and essential component of economic growth and development and ensure coherence across all areas of their activities on that basis;
2. Provide – whenever necessary – resources in the form of grants or concessional loans to facilitate investments in the set-up of national social protection systems that include investments in training and capacity-building of staff, and in the physical infrastructure that are required to implement social protection systems responsive to the needs of societies and that protect the entire resident population;
3. Cooperate with other international institutions, civil society and social partners including trade unions to develop a robust procedural methodology to determine the minimum level of investment in social protection systems to recommend to governments at all levels of development;
4. Help assure the resources needed to close the gaps in national social protection in good as well as bad times by making the long-run mobilization of resources in national financing frameworks for this purpose and their expenditure in medium-term spending plans conditions to pre-qualify for automatic and immediate access to international financial support during severe crises so as to ‘ring fence’ the social protection floor;
5. Support the conceptualization and negotiation of international financial instruments and initiatives to support national investments in social protection, such as an International Financial Transaction Tax, a Financial Activities Tax, and similar measures;
6. Make collaboration with relevant UN agencies and consultations with all national stakeholders a mandatory part of advisory activities and lending programmes for member countries, in the form of national social dialogue and societal consultation processes; and
7. Contribute through their advisory and investment activities to the implementation of the SDGs and other globally or regionally agreed international instruments on social protection, as well as work to enable countries to attain their national social protection priorities.

The United Nations System and in particular its specialized agencies ILO, WHO, FAO are requested to:

1. Promote the implementation, application, and, where appropriate, the enforcement of existing international standards, including the ILO’s Social Security (Minimum Standards) Convention, 1952 (No. 102), the ILO’s Social Protection Floors Recommendation, 2012 (No. 202) and other applicable labour standards and human rights law relevant to social protection by ensuring coherence in internationally agreed social policy, including in the promotion of action at global and national level to implement the SDGs;
2. Work toward upgrading and strengthening international standards by promoting their further development, ensuring at the same time that in addressing rights to income and health security, no development must contradict or regress on obligations already formulated in existing international instruments and objectives specified in the SDGs and any other acquired rights and entitlements;
3. Work to create a global solidarity mechanism to support the maintenance and advancement of social protection components and systems that helps countries with very low income and countries in distress to catalyse financing for essential social transfers to achieve income security and health security, and that also serves to coordinate support to States to develop independent financing capacity over the medium and longer term;
4. Support countries to develop representative, constructive and transparent national social dialogue and societal consultations on social protection and make such dialogue and societal consultations an integral component of the technical or advisory support that UN agencies provide to States on social protection;
5. Intensify collaboration across the UN system on social protection and wider social policy matters and monitor the national and international funding of social protection and actions of the International Financial Institutions as part of the new Social Compact agreed at the Third International Conference on Financing for Development in Addis Ababa (2015);
6. Increase international multilateral technical and advisory capacity to support Member States on the development, administration and financing of national social protection systems;
7. Place stronger emphasis on supporting national capacity building for social protection planning, management and financing, on the application of good standards of social governance at national level and on helping to develop and strengthen standards of good and responsible social governance; and
8. Support the establishment of an international tax cooperation body at the United Nations that makes international cooperation on tax matters more effective, aimed at reducing opportunities for tax evasion and aiding countries to capture the taxes due that can serve to finance social protection, by reducing downward pressures on national tax levels from global tax competition, among other means.

Civil society and trade unions

In addition to national and international authorities, civil society and trade unions play important roles in building political will and generating public support for reform.  Their inclusion alongside the political actors in national governments and global institutions is a matter of democratic and inclusive governance, increasing the likelihood of broad-based support and of strengthening the social contract.

The development, implementation and monitoring of universal social protection policies requires the effective and structural involvement civil society and trade unions. Whereas governments are, of course, the primary duty-bearers in delivering universal social protection, they should recognize the important transformative role that civil society and trade unions play in realizing the right to social protection for people around the world. This is mainly due to their important work on the ground, with the people and for the people.

At national level, civil society and trade unions, broadly represented by the membership of the Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors, organize women and men in their communities, work with vulnerable groups, help develop good practice in matters of social protection, and empower communities to formulate demands that can transform national systems.

International instruments on social protection create policy opportunities to promote the extension of social protection at national levels and themselves promote national and international solidarity to support national efforts.

To this end, the Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors, a coalition of civil society organizations and trade unions, pledges to continue to:

1. Demand adherence to international instruments on social protection by national governments and international organizations and to promote the further development of global standards;
2. Demand the set-up and continuation of national dialogue and national societal consultations on social protection;
3. Demand consistency between social protection policies and other social and economic policies; for example, policies for the reduction of informality and introduction of minimum wage levels to abolish in-work poverty should be implemented in parallel with the availability of a comprehensive set of social services in order to free the social assistance resources for the protection of people who are out of work or not available for work by reason of age, maternity, sickness, or disability.
4. Train trade union and civil society representatives in the design, planning, financial and general management, supervising and monitoring of social protection systems as needed; and
5. Monitor national and international efforts to extend social protection systems inter alia by organizing regular national and international meetings on accountability mechanisms and outcomes that review national progress towards universal social protection that is inclusive and accessible, notably with reference to completing the social protection floor and progress in achieving the wider international social agenda. These meetings should in particular monitor the policy recommendations of the IMF, the World Bank, the ILO and other UN specialized agencies working in specific countries and their compliance with international instruments and development objectives.

Our world is not sustainable without social security for all

Experts, civil society, and trade unions have pointed out for decades that at least a basic level of social protection that provides a solid level of security is affordable, everywhere.  This is not a long-term hope for a distant better future.  Basic social protection is affordable now.  A maximum of between 2 and 3 per cent of global GDP would be needed to bring the income of the poorest up to the US$ 3.20 line and add about US$500 per poor person to the annual resources available for health care.

If the global community continues to hesitate to muster the solidarity to finance that level of national and international redistribution, we would be accepting another outrageous situation for global humanity, on par with that of our reckless treatment of the environment.

The accelerating destruction of our natural environment and growing indifference to human misery are parallel tendencies that are reciprocal in many ways.  One problem cannot be solved without solving the other. People cannot be expected to change their behaviour to protect the environment – and hence help reduce environmental hazards that are predominantly caused by the lifestyles and production technologies that benefit the rich – if their economic misery, hunger, lack of education and access to essential goods and services forces them inter alia to burn fossil fuels, dilapidate resources and endangered assets, dispose of waste improperly, and fail to protect sources of clean water; prevents them from having access to carbon-neutral forms of transport; and limits their capacity to produce goods without wasting scarce inputs.

No country can afford not to invest in social protection. Poverty, inequality and uncertainty not only affect the quality of life of billions of individuals, but also undermine the cohesive fabric of societies, the credibility and stability of national and geo-political systems and the sustainability of our physical environment.  They are a source of national unrest, a potential cause of major public health and environmental catastrophes, of migratory pressures and of conflict.

We have the mandate, the means and the insights to act.  We have to muster the political will for the good of all of us.

Notes:

1 This document draws substantially from the writings of GCSPF member organizations and individual members, whose contributions are acknowledged here. The document was drafted by Michael Cichon with a team consisting of Evelyn Astor, Wouter van Ginneken, Barry Herman, Daniel Horn and Nicola Wiebe. Odile Frank finalized the text. The statement is endorsed by the GCSPF membership as its institutional author.

2 The international poverty line reflects the average of national poverty lines of 15 of the poorest countries, 13 of which are in Africa and two in Asia. Moreover, a monetary value cannot take into account the multidimensionality of poverty, which is the focus of the 2030 agenda.

3 See Michael Cichon, 2018. “Hardly Anyone Is Too Poor to Share: A basic level of social protection is affordable nearly everywhere”, Point of View in Special Issue “Age of Insecurity: Rethinking the social contract”, Finance & Development (quarterly publication of the IMF), Vol. 55, No. 4: 14-15 (December).

4 This formulation is that of the ILO’s “Declaration concerning the aims and purposes of the International Labour Organisation (DECLARATION OF PHILADELPHIA)” of 1944, a constituent part of the ILO Constitution; see Article III (f): “the extension of social security measures to provide a basic income to all in need of such protection and comprehensive medical care”.

5 See International Labour Organization, 2017. World Social Protection Report 2017-2019. Geneva: ILO.

6 See, for example, European Commission, 2013. “Evidence on Demographic and Social Trends. Social Policies' Contribution to Inclusion, Employment and the Economy”, Commission Staff Working Document. Brussels: European Commission (20 February), 47 pages.

7 See Mira Bierbaum, Cäcilie Schildberg and Michael Cichon, 2017. “Social Protection Floor Index – Update and Country Studies”. Berlin: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) for the Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors.

8 The cost of closing the income poverty gap is calculated as the cost of raising the incomes of persons who have less than 50 per cent of the country’s median income up to the 50 per cent level, except in the case of the poorest countries for which the 50 per cent indicator would be below US$1.90 per day, the international indicator noted earlier in footnote 2. In those cases, the cost of raising the income of the poorest to the US$1.90 target is used. Calculation of the health spending gap requires assessing the difference between actual national spending and the average public health expenditure of countries with adequate levels and allocation of professional health care staff (see Bierbaum et al., op cit. in footnote 7).

9 See Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), 2018. Accessible on 2 April 2019: https://www.sipri.org/media/press-release/2018/global-military-spending-remains-high-17-trillion (2 May).

10 Stephen Kidd, Bjorn Gelders and Diloá Bailey-Athias, 2017. “Exclusion by design: An assessment of the effectiveness of the proxy means test poverty targeting mechanism”, Extension of Social Security (ESS) – Working Paper No. 56. Geneva: ILO and Development Pathways, 22 pages. Accessible on 2 April 2019: https://www.developmentpathways.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Exclusion-by-design-An-assessment-of-the-effectiveness-of-the-proxy-means-test-poverty-targeting-mechanism-1-1.pdf.

11 World Bank Group Social Protection & Labor Team, no date. “PMT-based social registries: Measuring income and poverty using Proxy Means Tests”. Dhaka: World Bank, 5 pages. Accessible on 2 April 2019 at https://olc.worldbank.org/sites/default/files/1.pdf.

12 Isabel Ortiz, Fabio Durán-Valverde, Karuna Pal, Christina Behrendt and Andrés Acuña-Ulate, 2017. “Universal Social Protection Floors: Costing Estimates and Affordability in 57 Lower Income Countries”, Extension of Social Security (ESS) Working Paper No. 58. Geneva: ILO, 61 pages. Accessible on 2 April 2019: https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_protect/---soc_sec/documents/publication/wcms_614407.pdf.

13 Considerable research on tax policy design in this context can be found in: Nora Lustig, editor, 2018. Commitment to Equity Handbook: Estimating the Impact of Fiscal Policy on Inequality and Poverty. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press (30 October).

14 Jannick Damgaard, Thomas Elkjaer and Niels Johannesen, 2018. “Piercing the Veil”, Finance & Development (quarterly publication of the IMF), Vol. 55, No. 2: 51-53 (June).

15 See, for example, World Solidarity, 2016. “Amussol: informal workers have access to social security in the Dominican Republic!”, WSM-THEMATIC REPORT LATIN AMERICA-N ° 2. Brussels: World Solidarity, 8 pages (December). Available on 2 April 2019: www.solmond.be and www.wereldsolidariteit.be.

16 For more information see: Olivier de Schutter and Magdalena Sepúlveda, 2012. “Underwriting the Poor: A Global Fund for Social Protection”, Briefing Note 07. Geneva: Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 26 pages (October). Available on 2 April 2019: https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Food/20121009_GFSP_en.pdf.

17 See, for example, International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), 2018. Global Conference on Financing Social Protection, meeting held in Brussels, 17-18 September 2018 in partnership with the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and World Solidarity, documents and conclusions. Accessible on 2 April 2019 at https://www.ituc-csi.org/Social-Protection-Conference-2018-Documents?lang=en.

18 Isabel Ortiz, Matthew Cummins and Kalaivani Karunanethy, 2017. “Fiscal Space for Social Protection and the SDGs: Options to Expand Social Investments in 187 Countries”, Extension of Social Security (ESS) Working Paper No. 48. Geneva: International Labour Organization and New York: UNICEF & UNWOMEN, 71 pages (2nd edition, 25 May).

19 Michael Cichon, 2018. “The Social Protection Agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals and Its Fiscal Challenge” and Appendix 1: “Sustainable Development Goals, Governance, and Outcome Targets Constituting the Social Protection Agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals” in Sri Wening Handayani, editor. Asia’s Fiscal Challenge: Financing the Social Protection Agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals. Manila: Asian Development Bank, pp. 10-49 and 210-213 (October). Accessible on 2 April 2019: https://www.adb.org/publications/asia-fiscal-challenge-social-protection-agenda.

20 Barry Herman, 2018. “Sustainably Financing Social Protection Floors: Toward a Permanent Role in National Development Planning and Taxation”, Discussion Paper. Berlin: Bröt fur die Welt with the Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors, Analysis 81, 40 pages (April). Accessible on 2 April 2019: https://www.socialprotectionfloorscoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/2018-Publication-Analyse81-Barry-Herman.pdf.

21 Inter-agency Task Force on Financing for Development, 2018. Financing for Development: Progress and Prospects, 2018. New York: United Nations. Accessible on 2 April 2019: https://developmentfinance.un.org/sites/developmentfinance.un.org/files/Report_IATF_2018.pdf.

22 Staff of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), 2017. “State-Contingent Debt Instruments for Sovereigns”, IMF Policy Paper: Staff Report and Press Release. Washington, D.C.: International Monetary Fund, 45 pages (23 March and 22 May). Accessible on 2 April 2019: https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/Policy-Papers/Issues/2017/05/19/pp032317state-contingent-debt-instruments-for-sovereigns.

The ILO established the right to social security and today recommends Social Protection Floors. That move is crucial, says Ebenezer Durojaye.

To celebrate 100 years of the International Labour Organization (ILO), the Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors launched a statement outlining the path towards universal social protection for all. We talked to Ebenezer Durojaye of the Coalition about why social security remains one of the most important issues of our time, and about the ILO's role in advancing the right to social security in the past and present.

Read the interview here.

Civil Society Call for a Global Fund for Social Protection

Over 200 civil society organizations and trade unions unite to call for a Global Fund for Social Protection to protect the most vulnerable during COVID-19 and beyond.

Read the Call

SP&PFM Programme

The programme Improving Synergies Between Social Protection and Public Finance Management provides medium-term support to multiple countries aiming to strengthen their social protection systems at a national level and ensure sustainable financing. The programme aims to support countries in their efforts towards achieving universal social protection coverage.

This initiative is implemented jointly by the ILO, Unicef, and the GCSPF.

Read more

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