The Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors (GCSPF) contributed to the Roadmap for Eradicating Poverty Beyond Growth. The “Roadmap for eradicating poverty beyond growth” was launched by the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights and the roadmap will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council in June/July 2026.
Call for submissions: A Roadmap for Eradicating Poverty Beyond Growth
Submission from the Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors
(Download pdf file, matrix of recommendations)
Our Global Coalition has contributed a paper called “Achieving Global Social Justice” to the outcome document of the Second World Summit for Social Development. It provides key messages and recommended policies to achieve universal social protection and its financing. Our contribution advocates a change in the way policies for eradicating poverty should be organized and it provides a roadmap for several policies that are crucial for eradicating poverty. For five policies we have provided a (preliminary) matrix of recommendations (download pdf file), as requested by the Special Rapporteur.
1. Eradicating poverty with people living in poverty
Poverty is not just about lack of income; it is multidimensional, involving material, social, and institutional deprivation, exacerbated by systemic discrimination, structural barriers, and exclusion. Accordingly, policies to address poverty must take a broad approach, based on in-depth and context-specific knowledge of the multi- dimensional nature of poverty and discrimination, and designed with meaningful participation of those directly affected, so that their voices are heard. For anti-poverty policies to be truly effective, the meaningful participation of people living in poverty - in all their diversity, including gender, disability, and ethnic minorities - must be ensured, with particular attention given to these groups throughout the design, implementation, and evaluation of the policies.
This approach requires a new way of conducting social policies. It means that participation is not just consultative, but deliberative. It requires support for organizations that show solidarity with people living in extreme poverty over the long term. It also calls for the creation of forums for meetings, dialogue and reflection where people living in poverty, relevant organizations, as well as other actors, such as academic and political players, are willing to participate on a basis of equality and of trust. A good tool to achieve this is the adoption and implementation of the “Inclusive and Deliberative Elaboration & Evaluation of Policies (IDEEP)” that was developed in collaboration with people living in poverty.
2. Establishing and/or implementing universal social protection systems and floors
Universal social protection systems and floors must be embedded in national legislation, budgets and programmes with long-term budget provision to provide for sustainability and reach, and to support their resilience and expansion in the event of climate and conflict-related shocks that affect people and their communities, from the cradle to the grave. The legislation of social protection systems and floors is essential for long-term financial sustainability, and institutional stability; established as a national institution, social protection must be protected from the vicissitudes of partisan politics.
As shown in the matrix of recommendations, the aim is for all countries to have developed a national implementation and financing plan within the next 2-3 years. At the same time a UN Agency needs to be appointed to coordinate and oversee UN technical cooperation in this area. Moreover, it is to be expected that the Global Accelerator Fund will be established and financed. In later years, legislation and standards will be adopted and sustainable financing safeguarded – in possible collaboration with regional and global agencies.
3. Ratification of existing and adoption of new international instruments
The ILO, the UN and regional institutions have adopted international legal instruments that have important implications for social protection. They will continue to be monitored and supervised by the relevant mechanisms. An interesting new development has been the adoption of the Protocol on the Rights of Citizens to Social Protection and Social Security (2022), a protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights. Ratification by all eligible Member States is being urged and should proceed apace.
New instruments will be important tools of the multilateral system to ensure the establishment and expansion of floors of social protection. An ILO Convention for Social Protection would give new impetus to rachet the agenda for social protection into domestic law. The Human Rights Council has recently begun an intergovernmental process to draft an international human rights treaty on older people. The adoption of this treaty would greatly expand protection to one of the most unprotected groups globally.
The adoption, ratification and application of these new instruments will require important efforts to build consensus at the national, regional and global level.
4. Accessing social protection and services: Digitalization and legal identity
Up to a billion people around the globe face challenges in proving who they are. According to United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF), hundreds of millions of children have no legal identity, lacking birth registration and the birth certificate they need to assert a legal identity. Millions of older persons and persons with disability lack identity documents. The lack of legal identity, limited access to technology and the internet, inaccessibility of forms and websites, and illiteracy, and unfamiliarity with administrative procedures—combined with physical barriers such as inaccessible government buildings, long distances to the nearest offices, and insufficient transportation or financial resources to access these services—pose significant obstacles for many vulnerable groups in accessing social protection and other public services, even when they are available.
Changes in legislation on legal identity and its application at national and local level are needed to ensure a legal identity for everyone. This means free birth registration, simplified procedures to obtain legal identity for adults and children, as well as mobile administrative services for areas that are currently underserved. Additionally, disability cards that provide access to benefits compensating for disabilities and/or need for care are essential, in addition to the appropriate systems to support their implementation. The opportunity of national data collection exercises, such as decennial censuses, and intercensal surveys, should be used to establish and ensure universal registration of household members. Governments should also be assisted to provide and maintain civil registration systems.
The Global Digital Compact adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2024 should be fully implemented – particularly in low-income countries, but also in medium- and high-income countries – as it aims at providing digital access for the population as a whole.
5. A “Surge in Action” for low-income countries
Although the income gap between rich and poor countries has narrowed on average, many low-income nations have not benefited from this progress. They often face multiple economic challenges—including rapid inflation, food insecurity, costly borrowing, and mounting debt—heightened by the impact of an increasingly unstable world trade and security situation. The world needs to implement a new commitment to global financial cooperation for development, as proposed by the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
The Surge in Action to deliver the SDGs is to be financed by UN Member States, IMF, the World Bank and regional banks. As noted in point 2 above, low-income countries should design their social protection and investment plans, such as devised under the Global Accelerator, to be part of their national development plans, to be implemented in the medium-term supported by new funding commitments.
The IMF should further implement its recent policy on IMF engagement on social spending through protecting that spending in countries during periods of ineluctable fiscal deficit reduction, paying heed to the greater obligation to protecting life and honouring human rights than fully servicing debt owed to foreign private and official creditors.
The design and implementation of the SDG agenda requires sustained efforts at the national and local level. At the national level progressively, domestic financing will have to be identified and available, to become sustained and growing in the long-term. At the local level the role of civil society must be assessed, while in the medium- and long-term the workforce for sustainable implementation must be trained and employed. At the global level, low- (and middle-) income countries need to be better represented in the World Bank and the IMF which should provide the resources, such as drawing rights and other international financial aid - to support sustainable development, including social protection, beyond 2030.
6. Establishment of an effective and equitable international tax system
The establishment of an effective and equitable international tax system is an essential condition for the sustainable financing of the expansion of social protection and of the achievement of the SDG 2030 agenda in general and beyond. The system should be based on progressive taxation, so that all can contribute according to their capacity, and all can receive according to their needs. Eradication of poverty beyond growth needs fiscal space for investment and redistribution.
Countries that effectively work together can increase their national tax revenues through a fairer allocation of the profits of multi-national firms and by curtailing tax cheating. The Finance for Development Conference – to be held in June/July 2025 – will come up with several recommendations on how countries can collaborate to reduce tax evasion and increase domestic resource mobilization. This would also be the aim of the proposed UN Framework Convention on international tax collaboration, for which the terms of reference for its negotiation have recently been adopted by the UN General Assembly. The plan is for the international negotiating committee to submit the text of a new UN Framework Convention in the next few years, to be adopted in the medium-term and to be implemented within the next 10 years.
