Basic social services such as education, water and sanitation, healthcare and housing are intended to meet essential human needs. States are given the task of guaranteeing equal access to these services, either through direct provision or through the regulation of services provided by other institutions, such as businesses or...

This paper examines policies for the support of families with children, in particular child-related financial transfers and early childhood education and care (ECEC) services. The analysis is mainly focused on countries with institutionalized welfare states – primarily Western European and other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries...

This paper documents the pervasiveness of women’s lack of income security in old age across a large number of countries, but also points to a number of important policy measures that can be taken to address gender pension gaps. It focuses on how pension systems interact with other social...

Despite Fiji’s status as a middle-income country, a high proportion of children live in poor and income-insecure families. The Department of Social Welfare administers several social transfer schemes for low-income and vulnerable individuals and families, including the Care and Protection Allowance for children. This report examines levels of child...

In discussing the ways to protect and promote the human right to social security, particularly the right to old age security, Amartya Sen’s work provides important insights. Sen (2009) argues for understanding human rights as powerful moral claims, transcending a legal interpretation of these rights (as legal demands, motivation...

This report examines the economic crisis’ effect on child social protection in...

Here, the Australian government provides a compilation of the Student Assistance Act 1973, showing the text of the law as amended and in force on 8 December 2014. The notes at the end of this compilation include information about amending laws and the amendment history of provisions of the...

The objective of this act is to establish regulations for the provision of financial support to primary carers of newborns and newly adopted children. This financial support is intended for primary carers who are in the work force and is intended to complement and/or supplement existing entitlements to paid...

The Social Protection Platform is the International Labour Office’s global knowledge sharing tool to extend social protection. The platform aims to facilitate the exchange of information and ideas, capture and document experiences, identify knowledge gaps and facilitate the creation of knowledge through the promotion of innovation. To achieve this goal, the...

Nature of the Case The case was brought on behalf of a pregnant woman who died in a hospital while awaiting obstetric care. It considers whether the hospital failed to provide appropriate obstetric care and management, thereby violating her rights as well as those of her surviving children. Summary...

This publication summarizes existing knowledge on the impact of cash transfers on women. These transfers are of relevance for gender equality, first, because as a group, women spend fewer years in paid employment than men, receive lower wages, and live longer. All three differences increase women’s risks of poverty....

On 19 June, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the International Movement ATD Fourth World, with support of the Permanent Missions of Belgium, Chile, France and Romania will hold a side event at the Human Rights Council. The Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human...

This Recommendation recognizes the lack of protection of workers in the informal economy, and provides guidance for improving their protection and facilitating transitions to the formal economy. It also recognizes that decent work deficits – the denial of rights at work, the absence of sufficient opportunities for quality employment,...

This working paper identifies the social protection policy design and implementation details that enable timely and adequate shock response. It also examines developments in securing adequate social protection financing and crisis preparedness....

This handbook is intended as a practical guide for members of governing boards of social security organizations in Africa. While the structure and mandate of social security boards varies from country to country, they all have important responsibilities: ensuring that social security contributions are used judiciously for intended purposes,...

This policy paper: (i) provides a global overview of the organization of maternity cash benefits and maternity care in 188 countries; (ii) analyses trends and recent policies, e.g. extension of maternity protection coverage in a large number of low- and middle-income countries; (iii) describes the negative impacts of fiscal...

Population ageing is one of the most significant trends of the 21st century. It has important and far-reaching implications for all aspects of society. Around the world, two persons celebrate their sixtieth birthday every second – an annual total of almost 58 million sixtieth birthdays. With one in nine...

Ghana’s National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) is an innovative attempt to extend social protection to informal workers, and, as such, it may hold important policy lessons for other countries where the informal economy is large and growing and where informal workers are excluded from existing social protection mechanisms. Few...

This paper focuses on the analysis of experience in creating fiscal space for the extension of social protection. It presents the results of studies conducted in eight developing countries (Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Costa Rica, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Thailand) that successfully extended social protection including floors for national...

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...

This brief paper first recapitulates the main pension financing options and reviews the theoretical pros and cons of pension funding seeking for a logical synthesis. In the second part of the paper, a broad review of the historical experience of pension reforms since the 1980’s is presented as well...

The proposals set forth in this document rest on the premise that public policy should be guided by the ownership of rights. These recommendations are therefore designed to build bridges between social rights and the policy guidelines needed to make them more enforceable through improved access, better financing and...

In 1980 Chile reformed its pension system leading to the privatization of the pensions. This reform gave rise to several representation procedures before the Governing Body under article 24 of the ILO Constitution between 1986 and 2001. The Governing Body concluded that Chile’s pension reform did not comply with...

This book, edited by Peter Townsend, makes the case for a comprehensive social security system to be developed in all countries, including the poorest ones, in order to eliminate desperate conditions of poverty, to reverse growing inequality and to sustain economic growth. The establishment of universal social security systems...

In its general report of 2009, the Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations (CEACR) observed that the global financial crisis was posing a real threat to the financial viability and sustainable development of social security systems and undermining the application of ILO social security standards....