World Social Protection Report 2020-22

World Social Protection Report- Relevance for UPSC Exam

• GS Paper 2: Governance, Administration and Challenges: Development processes and the development industry- the role of NGOs, SHGs, various groups and associations, donors, charities, institutional and other stakeholders.

World Social Protection Report– Context

• Recently, World Social Protection Report was launched by the International Labour Organization (ILO).
• World Social Protection Report provides a global overview of progress made around the world over the past decade in extending social protection and building rights-based social protection systems, in the context of COVID-19.
• Social protection: includes access to health care and income security measures related especially to old age, unemployment, sickness, disability, work injury, maternity or the loss of the main breadwinner in a family, as well as extra support for families with children.

Key Points about World Social Protection Report

• “The World Social Protection Report: Social protection at the crossroads – in pursuit of a better future”- a flagship of the ILO, is an essential contribution to the monitoring framework of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
• Based on new data, it offers a broad range of global, regional and country data on social protection coverage, benefits and public expenditures.

World Social Protection Report- Key Findings

• COVID-19 Impact: It is estimated that the pandemic has increased the number of children living in income-poor households by more than 142 million, bringing the total to almost 725 million.
• Global Scenario:1 billion people were living without any social safety net of any kind.
  • In 2020, only 46.9% of the global population benefitted from at least one social protection.
• Social Protection for Children: only 26.4 percent of children globally receive social protection benefits.
  • Effective social protection is particularly low in some regions: 18% in Asia and the Pacific, 15.4% in the Arab States, and 12.6 percent in Africa.
  • National expenditure, on average, for social protection for children is only 1.1% of GDP, compared to 7% of GDP spent on pensions.

Key recommendations for enhancing social protection for children

• Avoid fiscal austerity and use recovery as a policy opportunity to further strengthen child-sensitive and inclusive social protection systems in order to ensure children’s well-being and achieve the SDGs.
• Ensure adequacy within social protection systems in terms of inclusion and gender sensitivity, and that they address climate-related and conflict-related risks.

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