GCSPF e-Newsletter # 73 – July 2022

The Social Protection Podcast “A Global Fund for Social Protection” contributes to the ongoing debates around universal approaches to social protection: financing.
The guests in this episode are Charles Lwanga-Ntale (Independent Consultant); Helmut Schwarzer (Head of Public Finance, Actuarial and Statistics Unit of the Social Protection Department at the International Labour Organization) and Marcus Manuel (Independent Consultant). The guests will contribute to the discussions around what shape should such a fund take? What are the lessons available to date? How to address the coverage gaps in social protection given differences in fiscal space? And finally, how did the COVID-19 pandemic influence those trends in social protection financing? Listen to podcast

For the past several years, the Asian Roundtable on Social Protection (AROSP) members have contributed to many achievements on the way toward transformative social protection. This grassroots modalities collection is drawn from their stories: construction workers gaining occupational health and safety compensation in India, garment workers winning a higher minimum wage in Cambodia, informal workers getting access to maternity leave in the Philippines, or informal migrant workers obtaining access to health insurance in Vietnam. Several member organizations have also gained seats in their countries’ social protection decision making mechanisms: CCADWU has a seat on the committee of the social security fund in Cambodia and HomeNet SEA maintains a presence in the ASEAN social protection working group. Members have also successfully engaged in and contributed to policy changes: HomeNet Thailand advocated for universal health care and the Philippines Social Protection group advocated for informal workers’ ability to access maternity leave. This is the first collection of our grassroots modalities stories, focusing on the success that organizations have had in advocating for social protection policy in Asia. Read more

Universal access to essential health care: propositions from public international law to implement essential health care in conjunction with universal social protection”; by Odile Frank. Background paper prepared on behalf of Global Social Justice for the Working Group on the Role of Universal Health Coverage, now the Working Group on Health. March 2022. Read more

With the World Bank’s current gender strategy set to expire next year, hints of the focus of the new strategy are keenly anticipated. While the Bank has confirmed that development of the strategy is yet to begin, a focus on care and social protection has emerged in its gender work. One challenge for the Bank will be to stop undermining the targeted work of the gender team with fiscal consolidation and regressive tax-focused loan conditions in its Development Policy Financing. Civil society have criticised the strategy’s instrumentalist approach to women’s empowerment, the lack of a system of accountability, and the absence of a macroeconomic lens. Read more

This Global Policy Watch (GPW) Round Up #2, Ensuring Social Protection for All, highlights the critical importance of universal social protection not only in recovering from the pandemic, but also its vital role to address pre-existing deep-seated inequalities between and within countries. It details gaps in social protection coverage and financing, especially in poor countries, and failures of the targeted, or means-tested approach, often promoted by IMF and World Bank. Read more

Human Action for Integrated Development in Senegal (AHDIS) is a mixed and democratic Association whose members have decided to associate freely to pool their visions, ambitions and resources with the aim of actively participating in the emergence of an organization capable of taking charge of its own economic and social development in Senegal.
AHDIS is independent of any political power and intervenes in the rural world without discrimination of race, ethnicity or religion. It is a full member of civil society whose interests and aspirations it defends.
AHDIS has developed expertise in the areas of: The promotion of development financing activities for the strengthening of public programs and projects as well as the national private sector, through national and foreign investment funds; The promotion of microfinance as a support mechanism for community development activities in all regions of the country; Promotion of the right for health and support for activities to combat food insecurity and malnutrition, Social Protection For All (SPFA); Publication of sectoral policy reports on the national economic and social development strategy as well as studies on global issues of public governance; The promotion of a decentralized mechanism for the review and monitoring and evaluation of public policies at the local level by supporting the Regional Committees for the Study and Monitoring of Economic and Social Policy (CRESPES) in the fourteen (14) regions from the country; and Capacity building of economic and social development actors at regional and sub-regional level.
AHDIS is ruling ad regional president of International Council of Social Welfare (ICSW) in West and Central Africa.
Contact information: Amacodou DIOUF, President
http://ahdis.org/ Facebook: OngAHDIS