GCSPF e-Newsletter # 50 – March 2021

The video and the notes of the virtual side event “Building Roofs and Raising Floors Through Inclusive Digital Technologies and A Global Fund for Social Protection”, co-organized by the Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors (GCSPF) and Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP), are now online.

High level speakers from Governments, United Nations, civil society and academia tackled the diverse and interconnecting perspectives on social protection and homelessness, how digital technology can extend social protection floors to those who are living without roofs and the value and urgency of the Global Fund for Social Protection to deliver to all the right to social protection. The side event took place at the UN Commission for Social Development 2021 (CSocD59) and was held on Friday 12 February, 2021. Read more.

The Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors, in partnership with the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), is pleased to invite you to the event “International Solidarity to Support a Robust and Inclusive Recovery – A Global Social Protection Fund” that will be held in the framework of the Spring Civil Society Policy Forum of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The event will take place on Thursday 25 March 2021, 10:00 – 11:30 hs (Washington D.C. time). Read more

The Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors calls on the G20 to launch an initiative to establish a Global Fund for Social Protection. This year’s G20 is a critical opportunity for the world’s largest economies to come together and coordinate a response to overcome the consequences of the pandemic as such an act of international solidarity would unite the world on the path towards an equitable recovery from this pandemic. An advocacy letter was sent to members of the Employment Working Group that had two meetings in February. The letter calls for a Global Fund for Social Protection that would provide technical assistance for governments to offer a set of benefits that would guarantee a minimum income security for all over the life cycle. Read more

The Covid-19 pandemic has brutally exposed the fault lines of the global divide between those that have universal social protection, including health and income support, and those that don’t.
The world could fund the establishment of social protection systems or help bridge funding gaps with a clear path for sustainability.
The ITUC supports the idea of a global fund for social protection, which could help to bridge financing gaps for social protection for the world’s poorest countries, who lack sufficient fiscal space to build up social protection floors in the short-term on their own. It could also be accompanied by technical support to support States build up their capacity to finance social protection over the medium-long term. Financing a Global Social Protection Fund is an act of solidarity that can be realised. Read more

The blog by Michael Cichon highlights that “the COVID crisis is an opportunity to make the recognition of the role of social protection more permanent, and there is an almost unique opportunity to achieve this. This June it will be 10 years since the ILO’s 100th International Labour Conference (ILC) held a general discussion on social security. Still, under the dark shadow of the Global Financial Crisis, the 100th ILC in 2011 decided to request the ILO to develop a Recommendation on Social Protection Floors (SPFs). Just a year later Recommendation R. 202 concerning national floors of social protection was unanimously adopted by tripartite delegations from all 187 ILO member states (except for Panama, who abstained). The concept of the social protection floor originated from the work of a Joint UN Crisis Initiative that the ILO and WHO co-chaired since 2009. This June, the 110th ILC will review the ILO’s work on social protection in another general discussion. This is the time when the international community should commission the development of a stronger instrument of international law on universal social protection.” Read more

Unprecedented global working-hour losses in 2020. In terms of the pandemic’s overall impact in 2020, the new ILO annual estimates confirm that it caused massive disruptions in the world of work. In 2020, 8.8 per cent of global working hours were lost relative to the fourth quarter of 2019, equivalent to 255 million full-time jobs (assuming a 48 hour working week). These losses were global and unprecedented.
While the disruption was global, there was substantial variation between regions. The labour market disruption in 2020 far exceeded the impact of the global financial crisis of 2009. The effect of the COVID-19 shock on global working hours has therefore been approximately four times greater than that of the global financial crisis. Read more