August 17, 2010: Former Chilean President Ms Michelle Bachelet presided over the first meeting of the Social Protection Floor Advisory Group in Geneva, 11-12 August 2010, convened by ILO Director-General Juan Somavia.
The “social protection floor” is a set of basic social security rights and transfers, as well as essential services in the area of employment, health, water and sanitation, nutrition, education and family-support, to protect and empower poor and vulnerable people to work out of poverty. These social policies must be combined in a coherent and integral life-cycle approach and have a special focus on the most vulnerable groups of society, including women, children and youth. Global March fully supports the efforts of the ILO and its member States to ensure improved access to social protection floors by the poor and vulnerable as a key strategy in eliminating and preventing child labour.
According to the ILO, four out of five persons worldwide in the working-age population have no access to adequate social protection, lacking access to social security, health and unemployment assistance. The economic crisis has impacted adversely these vulnerable populations both in developed and developing countries and global unemployment has reached its highest level on record, and is expected to increase throughout 2010. This development will inevitably have a knock-on effect on the vulnerability of at-risk children and will lead to increased numbers of child labourers in the world.
Importance of social protection floor in context of global economic crisis
During the two-day Advisory Group meeting, prominent experts and policy-makers from an array of countries and backgrounds engaged in discussions concerning the meaning of a “Social Protection Floor”, its main components and political, economic and financial feasibility. The focus was also on its institutional dimensions, fiscal space availability and overall sustainability in very diverse situations and according to different countries’ circumstances and needs.
The group also discussed ways to enhance policy coherence in social policies and recognised the importance of the social protection floor as a key lever to accelerate the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It was stressed that a social protection floor is relevant and needed also for developed countries, and an important factor for the achievement of a fairer and sustainable globalisation, in particular to combat poverty, empower people, reduce inequalities and build social inclusion.
In an interview, Ms Bachelet pointed out that: “No-one can deny the crucial role that social protection measures have played during the current global economic crisis. They have not only prevented millions of people from falling further into poverty by ensuring access to much needed social services, but also helped to reduce the likelihood of social unrest and made an important contribution to limiting the fall in aggregate demand, thus curtailing the potential depth of the recession.”
She added: “But social protection policies – and the goal of a social protection floor – will be even more important in the months and years ahead to tackle the enormous human cost that the economic crisis has left behind. It is now time to come together in an effective coalition and synergise our activities to make social protection a reality for all. The launch of this group is the first step forward.”
Innovative experiences such as the Chilean social protection system, Brazil’s Bolsa Familia, the Revenue de Solidarité Active (RSA) in France, and the Indian unfolding 100-day employment guarantee scheme, served as the basis for the discussion.
UN Social Protection Floor Initiative
To fill the social protection gap and support countries to cope with the human toll of the crisis, the United Nations system, the IMF, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization (WTO), under the leadership of the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, have agreed to jointly promote the implementation of a Social Protection Floor.
This is one of the nine joint initiatives adopted in April 2009 by the United Nations System Chief Executives Board for Coordination (UNCEB) to cope with the effects of the economic crisis. The Social Protection Floor Initiative is led by the ILO and WHO and involves a group of 17 other agencies.
In echoing similar statements made by a number of other organisations, including the Global March, ILO Director-General Juan Somavia stated that: “The launch of the Advisory Group comes at a critical time. The global financial and economic crisis has created greater vulnerabilities in terms of decent work, health, hunger and education which will have dramatic social effects unless decisive action is taken. It risks compromising progress towards internationally agreed development goals, including halving global poverty by 2015 and the other MDGs. It is the United Nations’ duty to protect those fundamental elements of social cohesion that make human development possible, but which are often the first to be discarded in a recession.”
In a welcome development for Global March, the advisory group also said that special attention should be given to women and youth. The Social Protection Floor Advisory Group will provide general guidance and catalyse policy coherence to the work in this area. It will also promote the exchange of experiences, capacity-building and implementation of the social protection floor concept according to different socio-economic and institutional contexts at the global, regional, national and local levels. The group will also collaborate in the identification of good practices around the world and facilitate exchanges and cooperation across countries, including South-South cooperation.
Global March will continue to monitor the work and progress of the Advisory Group and the ILO on activities and resource materials related to the social protection floor and disseminate further information through its web site. “In the light of the forthcoming MDG Summit in New York in September,” said Global March Chairperson Kailash Satyarthi, “the launch of this advisory group is a crucial step forward in galvanising global efforts to protect the poor, vulnerable and marginalised from the devastating impact of the economic crisis. We look forward to its continued work and contributions to policies and programmes worldwide that will, as clearly stated in Roadmap 2016 under section 8.3 on social protection, ensure support for the elimination and prevention of child labour.”
Source: International Labour Organization (ILO), www.ilo.org |
