GCSPF e-Newsletter #115 | April 2025 Edition

Understanding the systemic barriers to social assistance Millions of working-age South Africans qualify for the Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant, yet less than half receive it. Research by the Institute for Economic Justice (IEJ), with support from Agence Française de Développement (AFD), exposes how flawed poverty targeting and administrative failures lead to widespread SRD grant exclusion, deepening economic hardship for vulnerable groups. Read the report - Watch the webinar - Presentation

The 2025 Spring Meetings of the World Bank Group (WBG) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will take place from April 21 to 26, in Washington, D.C.
Find out all about the Civil Society Policy Forum (CSPF).

A response to Kidd et al. (2025) The purpose of this note is to respond to the Development Pathways Issue No. 35 (Kidd et. al 2025), which posits that the required investment to ensure universal social protection in low-income countries is significantly lower than the ILO estimate of 19.8 per cent of GDP or US$552.3 billion in 2024 for 25 low income countries (Cattaneo et al. 2024). Read more

In 2024, the Flagship Programme supported reforms and other initiatives that led to significant improvements in the social protection coverage, adequacy, and comprehensiveness of 18 million people across the world. The ILO has supported the achievement of 41 institutional changes, through the adoption of new social protection strategies and policy frameworks in 10 countries and territories, the establishment or operationalisation of new social protection schemes or programmes in 10 countries, and interventions that improved the operations of the social protection system in 21 countries. At all levels, the Flagship Programme has continued its essential support function to social protection extension and system strengthening, cementing the gains of previous years and enabling progress going forward. Read more

The 2-Billion-Person Challenge. The report documents advances and challenges to strengthening social protection and labor systems across low- and middle-income countries and discusses avenues to gradually close the coverage and adequacy gap for the world’s poorest.
Today, 2 billion people in low- and middle-income countries remain uncovered or inadequately covered by social protection, including over 1 billion people in Africa and South Asia alone. Three out of four people in low-income countries receive no form of social protection, and even in lower-middle-income countries, more than half of the population remains uncovered.
Read more - Recording of the official launch