Despite the international community’s recognition of social protection as a human right, the vast majority of the world’s population still has no access to social protection. In a major effort to address this situation, the International Labour Conference unanimously adopted the Social Protection Floors Recommendation 202 of 2012. However, because of the wide variety of possible schemes (and techniques that can be employed to administer them), there is a genuine risk that important values relating to social protection will be overlooked in implementing the Recommendation. This collection of expert essays contains an in-depth clarification and analysis of the Recommendation and sets forth a clear and practicable set of principles that can be used both as a policy tool and as an assessment framework for the creation, maintenance, and supervision of a national social protection floor. This book pays detailed attention to each of the Recommendation’s key principles, including the following: – state responsibility; – universality of protection; – entitlement based in law; – adequacy and predictability of benefits; – non-discrimination; – financial solidarity; – good governance; – coherence of policies; and – social participation. A special feature of the book is its inclusion of case studies that display innovative social protection schemes focusing on children and families, persons of working age (particularly informal sector workers), and elderly persons. A concluding section offers useful insights on measures that can be taken and lessons learned. As a deeply informed and practical guide to ways in which states can (and do) establish and maintain a social protection floor as a fundamental element of their national social protection systems, this book has no peers. It will be warmly welcomed by jurists concerned with social protection throughout the world, by pertinent government agencies at all levels, by non-governmental organizations, and by academics in the field.

In 2012, organizations including the United Nations, G20, and International Labor Organization adopted a global policy initiative known as the social protection floor--a set of measures designed to ensure that all people have access to essential health care and income security over their lifespan. This book, authored by a leading authority on global social policy, traces the emergence of the social protection floor and identifies the major influences that shaped it: shifts in the world's social structure, processes inside international institutions, attempts by global actors to create change, and shifts in the global conversation about social protection.

In many ways the power of the social protection floor lies in its simplicity. The floor is based on the idea that everyone should enjoy at least basic income security sufficient to live, guaranteed through transfers in cash or in kind, such as pensions for the elderly and persons with disabilities, child benefits, income support benefits and/or employment guarantees and services for the unemployed and working poor. Together, in cash and in kind transfers should ensure that everyone has access to essential goods and services, including essential health services, primary education, housing, water and sanitation. This report, prepared under the guidance of Ms Michelle Bachelet and members of the Advisory Group, shows that the extension of social protection, drawing on social protection floors, can play a pivotal role in relieving people of poverty and deprivation. It can in addition help people adapt their skills to overcome the constraints that block their full participation in a changing economic and social environment, contributing to improved human capital development and stimulating greater productive activity. The report also shows how social protection has helped to stabilize aggregate demand in times of crisis and to increase resilience against economic shocks, contributing to accelerate recovery towards more inclusive and sustainable development paths.

This exciting and innovative Handbook provides readers with a comprehensive and globally relevant overview of the instruments, actors and design features of social protection systems, as well as their application and impacts in practice. It is the first book that centres around system building globally, a theme that has gained political importance yet has received relatively little attention in academia.

The book examines the conceptual, economic, and fiscal impact(s) of the Social Protection Floor (SPF) initiative of the International Labor Organisation (ILO) and other policy influencers by first critically examining the methodologies used by the international agencies to estimate the fiscal costs of designated minimum package(s) of social protection programs. The book also briefly reviews the methodologies used and usefulness of the Social Protection Index (SPI) of the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Second, the book analyses strategies and specific initiatives used by the selected East Asian countries (China, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam), designed to progress towards the social protection goals underlying the Social Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the United Nations in September 2015, and endorsed by the countries covered in this book. Finally, the book provides a framework for generating fiscal space to fund the social protection programs and initiatives. The country chapters utilise this framework in the context of each specific country to suggest generating fiscal space.