GCSPF e-Newsletter # 58 - August 2021

The virtual side event “Decade of Action to achieve Universal Social Protection by 2030” took place on 12 July 2021 during the High-level Political Forum 2021.
The event was co-organized by the Permanent Mission of Argentina to the United Nations; Ministry of National Development Planning, Indonesia; Global Partnership for Universal Social Protection - USP2030; Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors; Global Call to Action Against Poverty; International Labour Organization; The World Bank; International Network for Social Protection Rights (INSP!R West-Africa); United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD); Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung; Protestant Agency for Diakonie und Development; Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd; Centro de Implementación de Políticas Públicas para la Equidad y el Crecimiento (CIPPEC). Watch the recording

From gender-responsive to gender-transformative public services. This briefing paper by the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (GI-ESCR) aims to explore the role of public services in the transformation of asymmetrical power relations between women and men. The publication argues that public services can play a decisive role in this transformation, by fostering a critical examination of gender roles, redistributing resources and opportunities and strengthening positive social practices that enhance gender equality. It puts forward five key elements for a gender-transformative approach to the management, delivery, funding and ownership of public services.
Public services enable us to tackle not only the consequences, but also the systemic and underlying factors—the uneven power imbalances — underpinning gender inequality. Read more

On July 2021 Human Rights Watch & Empowerment Initiatives (JEI) released the Report “Nigeria: Covid-19 Impact Worsens Hunger in Lagos” that documents how a five-week lockdown, rising food prices, and a prolonged economic downturn have had a devastating impact on informal workers, slum dwellers, and other urban poor families in Lagos. The absence of a functioning social security system meant that government assistance, including cash transfers and food handouts, reached only a fraction of people going hungry. The report also shows the need for increased international support for expanding the right to social security, including a reference to the Global Fund for Social Protection, to support expanded social security in the wake of the pandemic. The Global Fund could present an alternative to loans that may impose austerity measures that could harm human rights and increase poverty and inequality in the coming years. Read more

Social protection and care systems for children and families during COVID-19 and beyond. The COVID-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented, disastrous impact on the ability of people to balance work and care for their children and families. This policy brief is an outcome of a collaboration between Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO), UNICEF and the International Labour Organization (ILO) in advocating for family-friendly policies to protect and ensure social protection and care systems that are good for children, good for women and good for the economy. The policy brief features an increased focus on the well-being and working conditions of caregivers in the informal economy and their children’s development in low- and middle-income countries. The brief highlights the need to consider sustainable policy and protection responses instead of quick, short-term measures for more gender-transformative and equitable solutions. This represents a critical gap which, if not addressed, will make our goals to tackle child poverty, hunger and gender inequality – and fulfil the SDGs – impossible to achieve. Read more

Moussa Chrafeddine, President of I’DAD-Friends of the Disabled Association
Persons with disabilities in Lebanon represent between 10 and 15% of the total population of 7 million, totaling approximately to around 910,000 (K4D report).
As in many parts of the world, people with disabilities in Lebanon are among the most excluded and marginalized population groups. They contend with a systemic lack of provisions for rights, resources, and services and experience widespread marginalization, exclusion and violence at home and outside. This applies to all areas of their lives including access to quality care facilities. With the Lebanese economy practically in freefall, poverty and unemployment rates have reached records high, with disproportionately adverse impacts on persons with disabilities, among other most vulnerable groups. Read more

Responding together is key to overcome the COVID social, economic and health crisis caused by the pandemic. The Leave No Woman Behind 6 part mini-series of publications investigates regional and thematic dynamics which perpetuate multiple discrimination of women but also propose policy-based solutions.
The goal of the Leave No Woman Behind project is that women who face multiple discriminations, exploitation, abuse and/or violence take part in national and global processes to protect their rights and work for the implementation of the SDGs to ensure that no woman is left behind. In the first phase, the project works mainly with women and girls with disabilities. Read more

As of May 2021, Gala Díaz Langou is the new Executive Director of CIPPEC (Center for the Implementation of Public Policies Promoting Equity and Growth), Argentina.
Gala, who has been director of CIPPEC’s Social Protection Program since 2016, is founder and member of the Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors, the Childhood Debt collective (Infancia en Deuda), the Equality Agenda initiative (AgendaxlaIgualdad), Humanin Haus and is also argentine delegate for the Women 20 (W20).
As head of CIPPEC’s Social Protection Program, Gala promoted research and public policy recommendations on poverty, childhood, employment, social security and gender economic inequalities. She has a comprehensive approach on all these issues, with special concern for the feasibility and sustainability of social policies and the convergence of macroeconomics with development strategies. Read more