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If the worst happens, what happens next?
The loss of a job, a loved one, illness or disability can have catastrophic consequences
for families depending on low income to survive.
The global economic crisis has brought the urgent need for integrated national policies
on “social protection” sharply into focus.
In 2009, the United Nations Chief Executive Board adopted the “Social Protection Floor”
as one of its nine joint initiatives to cope with the effects of the economic crisis.
Along with 33 UN organizations and financial institutions, an inter-agency group led by
the ILO and the World Health Organization has developed a coordinated, global approach,
endorsed by the G20, to support countries in strengthening their social protection systems.The
goal: to provide access to essential social services and basic income security for all.
“Social protection is a responsibility all societies must address. The time is ripe for
acceleration in coverage, beginning with a broad-based floor of social protection.”
Some countries have already started to make the social protection floor a reality.
When the 2001 economic crisis devastated Argentina, the government provided modest cash payments
to unemployed families and subsidized salaries for employees. When the global economic crisis
hit in 2008, social protection schemes started during the earlier crisis saved 140,000 jobs
that would have been lost; re-training and cash transfer programs helped 100,000 or more.
“We believe that only by protecting employment and maintaining the level of salaries, will
we manage to maintain an active economy.”
Integrating various elements, rather than establishing isolated programmes is a key
approach.
Argentina also subsidized salaries, providing money directly to employees, both protecting
jobs and helping employers. Factories and businesses reopened, creating four million
jobs.
When the global economic crisis hit in 2008, social protection schemes started during the
earlier crisis saved jobs, paid for re-training, and provided a universal child allowance for
three and a half million families in the informal economy.
To provide social protection to elderly pensioners in Africa’s most sparsely populated country,
Namibia created a public/private partnership to launch a fleet of vehicles equipped with
cash machines and a biometric recognition system.
Now, nine out of ten Namibian people over the age of 60 collect their pension of 65
US dollars, no matter where they live.
The payments also directly benefit the local economy.
[Shopkeeper] I can say that it’s very good, the pay day
of pension days, we made a lot of money but we help them also, fifty, fifty.
In Namibia, the social protection floor not only keeps people out of poverty, but it is
an affordable investment in economic development, providing a good basis for a prosperous future
for the entire country.
India is responding to the need for social protection with the “Mahatma Gandhi National
Rural Employment Guarantee Act,” which guarantees each household as a rights-based entitlement
100 days of unskilled work a year, for example in agriculture, water projects, road building
and tree planting.
The huge social protection scheme has so far ensured a minimum wage for 41 million households
across India, while at the same time developing and improving India’s vast rural landscape.
Thailand introduced social protection in the form of the Universal Coverage Scheme. The
“U-C-S” provides access to eight out of ten Thais, more than 47 million people; many
of them are part of Thailand’s vast informal economy.
“Before the UCS, when I had to be hospitalized, it was difficult to pay and I had to beg the
doctor to be released early. Now when I’m admitted to the hospital and the doctor tells
me to rest for a week I can. I didn’t have to pay and I recovered faster.”
The cost to set up and administer the UCS so far has amounted to less than one per cent
of Thailand’s annual Gross Domestic Product, a relatively small investment that has resulted
in a substantial improvement in the health status of Thai people.
Despite its status as a fundamental human right under the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, today less than 25 per cent of the world’s population is adequately covered
by social security.
The United Nations’ Social Protection Floor initiative promotes integrated strategies
for providing access to essential social services and income security for all.
Establishing national social protection floors doesn’t have to cost a fortune. According
to the ILO, countries can start by investing a small percentage of GDP.
The former president of Chile, and head of UN WOMEN Michele Bachelet, is the chair of
the SPF Advisory Group.
“Any country can do it. Maybe you can start from a low level to a higher level but any
country can do it. And so we need political will in order to produce the fiscal space
that can make these kinds of possibilities affordable for different countries.”
The United Nations SPF initiative offers countries technical support to develop and implement
their national social protection floor policies, including awareness raising, ensuring financial
sustainability, monitoring, administration and delivery systems.
The ILO is in the process of developing an international recommendation with a set of
guidelines for building national social protection floors. This will be discussed by its tripartite
constituents at the International Labour Conference in 2012 in Geneva.
Around the world, countries at all levels of development are already proving they can
offer social protection to all, even in tough economic times.