GCSPF e-Newsletter #77 – October 2022

With the aim of strengthening the political incidence of civil society in favor of social protection in South America, a cycle of conferences with the participation of various organizations of civil society (e.g. feminists, trade unions, ecumenical, etc.) and experts in the field is taking place online. It is necessary an official care policy which contemplate supports and complements care work and defends the recognition of the "right to care", gender equality and human development. Likewise, ways of financing social protection are explored, including the creation of a global fund.
The videoconference “What the pandemic left us: necessary transformations” will take place online on Thursday, October 13, 2022 at 2:00 p.m. GMT-3. This conference will be in Spanish.
These activities are organized by Ciedur, Red de Género y Comercio, Social Watch and the Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors.

Representatives from different CSOs, unions and workers’ organisations will share their perspectives on whether, and if so, how, IFIs have changed their position on social protection in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on newly published evidence, we will discuss what is new regarding IFI’s engagement on social protection, what counts as progress, and what are areas where IFIs may continue to fall short on realising the right to social protection for all.
Thursday, October 20, 2022 2 PM GMT+1
Register - Read more

The Joint World Conference on Social Work, Education and Social Development 2022, under the theme “Redefining Social Policy and Social Work Practice in A Post-Pandemic Society: Social Welfare Programs and Social Work Education at A Crossroads” will be held from October 26 (Wed) to October 28 (Fri), 2022 in Seoul, South Korea. Hosted internationally by International Council on Social Welfare, and International Association of Schools of Social Work and hosted locally by Korea National Council on Social Welfare, Korean Council on Social Welfare Education, Korea Association of Social Workers, and Seoul Welfare Foundation. Read more
Event “Delivering on the commitment to universal social protection: the quest for innovative solutions” co-organized by the Global Coalition. Date and time to be confirmed.

Apologies, this webinar has been postponed. We will reschedule this event to a later date, and we will be in touch soon with more details.
There is broad consensus that expansion of social protection is a necessary response to the global food and economic crises. But an immediate reaction of countries when approached with the solution of universal social protection is “we can’t afford that!”. Today, the teams at ACT Church of Sweden, Development Pathways and Action Against Hunger show how, in actual fact, universality can be affordable.
Daisy Sibun will be launching a new paper, ‘Can a leopard change its spots? A critical analysis of the World Bank’s ‘progressive universalism’ approach to social protection’. The paper scrutinises the justification through which the World Bank continues to promote poverty targeted programmes, despite its more recent high-level support for the idea of universal social protection, and contrasts it with the human rights-based approach to social protection as promoted by the ILO. Friday, October 7, 2022 - 2 PM - 3 PM CEST - Register - Read more

The Global People's Assembly is a self organised space during the United Nations General Assembly high level wee with the aim of bringing the voices of the people to the forefront, at a time where decision makers engage in high level debate without people's involvement.
This year's Global People's Assembly took place online from Tuesday 20th September - Thursday 22nd September 2022. Read the Declaration and the recordings of the sessions
The Global Coalition is co-organizer of the Global People’s Assembly and several members participated in the sessions.
Isabel Ortiz (Global Social Justice Switzerland) participated in the opening session.
Sylvia Beales Gelber (APSP and member of the coalition core group) participated in the African Assembly and spoke on the right to universal social protection in Africa and the call for the global fund.
Florian Juergens-Grant (WIEGO) participated on behalf of the GCSPF at the session Leave No Woman Behind on Wednesday 21st September.

A new report titled “End Austerity: A global report on budget cuts and harmful social reforms”, shows that 85 percent of the world’s population will live in the grip of austerity measures by 2023. This trend is likely to continue until at least 2025, when 75 percent of the global population (129 countries) could still be living under these conditions.
Austerity measures include scaling down social protection programs for women, children, the elderly and other vulnerable people, leaving only a small safety net for a fraction of the poorest. They also include cutting or capping the wages and number of teachers and healthcare workers, eliminating subsidies, privatizing or commercializing public services such as energy, water and public transportation, and reducing pensions and workers’ rights.
The report is co-authored by Isabel Ortiz and Matthew Cummins and co-published by ActionAid, Arab Watch Coalition (AWC), Eurodad, Financial Transparency Coalition (FTC), Global Social Justice, Initiative for Policy Dialogue (IPD), International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), Latindadd, Public Services International (PSI), The Bretton Woods Project, Third World Network (TWN) and Wemos. Read more

The ITUC has welcomed a much-anticipated publication by the World Bank “Charting a Course Towards Universal Social Protection : Resilience, Equity, and Opportunity for All” but has a number of considerable reservations to some of the policy messages, as well as the rigor of the analysis underpinning some of the policies proposed. Read more

Meryame Kitir, Belgian Minister for Development Cooperation; Jutta Urpilainen, European commissioner for international partnerships ; Shahra Razavi Director of the Social Protection Department of the International Labour Organisation (ILO); Olivier De Schutter, Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights; Sharon Burrow, General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and many other partners in international cooperation participated in the Conference “Universal Social Protection, How to make it happen?”. The report of the Belgian dialogue USP2030 is now available in French. Read more