Social protection plays a key role in realizing the rights of persons with disabilities of all ages: providing them with an adequate standard of living, a basic level of income security; thus reducing levels of poverty and vulnerability. Moreover, mainstream and/or specific social protection schemes concerning persons with disabilities...

  When individuals and communities are able to realize their rights — to education, social security,  information and, most importantly, non-discrimination — the personal and societal impacts of HIV and AIDS and other chronic illnesses are reduced. Often persons living with HIV/AIDS and other chronic illnesses often face difficulties...

Depending on the definition of social protection used (which my vary from country to country) in any given context, national social protection systems may also comprise benefits which cannot easily be classified into the nine “standard” branches of social security, namely health care, sickness, old age, unemployment, employment injury,...

Unemployment protection schemes provide income support over a determined period of time to unemployed people who are capable of working. Their objective is to provide at least partial income replacement for the loss of earnings resulting from temporary unemployment, enabling the beneficiary to maintain a certain standard of living...

It is essential that persons are provided with reliable sources of income security throughout their old age. As people grow older, they can rely less and less on income from employment for a number of reasons: while highly educated professionals may often continue well-remunerated occupations until late in their...

Maternity protection includes protection against suspension or loss of income during maternity leave, and access to maternal health care. Maternity leave supported with cash benefits to fully or partially replace women’s earnings during the final stages of pregnancy and after childbirth is of critical importance for the well-being of...

Health coverage, and particularly access to health care when it is needed, is crucial for human well-being. In addition, of all the elements of social protection, health care is most essential to the economy as a whole and to economic recovery in particular. Against this background, health protection schemes...

Child and family benefits, in cash and in kind, play a particularly important role in realizing children’s rights and addressing their needs, particularly for the most vulnerable members of society. Evidence from many parts of the world demonstrates that social protection benefits have led to a marked improvement in...

Employment injury benefit schemes, providing benefits in cash and in kind in cases of work-related accidents and occupational disease, were established to address one of the key challenges in modern workplaces. Employers are not only responsible for ensuring working conditions which secure the occupational safety and health of their...

Social protection systems play a key role in meeting the specific needs of persons with disabilities with regard to income security, social health protection and social inclusion. Disability benefits are one of the elements of social protection systems that explicitly address disability-related needs and provide income support to persons...

A social protection system (or social security system) consists of all types of social protection schemes and programmes within a given country. These different schemes and programmes, which can be contributory or non-contributory, should be interlinked and complementary in their objectives and functions. For reasons of effectiveness and efficiency,...

Non-discrimination and equality are core elements of the international human rights normative framework. Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) states that every human being is entitled to all rights and freedoms “without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or...

In the wake of the International Labour Organization’s adoption of Recommendation 202 in June 2012, the Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors was created. But that was not the start of the unique network of today more than 80 NGOs and trade unions of which 16 form the Coalition’s...

Across the world, states have made binding commitments under international human rights law to do what they can to ensure all their population attains its basic material needs. And yet, governments in numerous countries have been introducing so-called conditional cash transfer schemes (CCTs) based on the imposition of forms...

Is the empowerment of women through conditional cash transfers illusory as women are ‘empowered’ by these programmes only as the nodal points receiving cash for the family and not as independent persons with their own economic, social and cultural rights? First, it is important to distinguish between the positive...

ILO and the right to social security: implicit assumptions about women The twentieth century witnessed the development of national social security and social protection mechanisms aimed at providing economic, social and public answers to address social risks. Social security schemes were based on the assumption that either women were...

Access to adequate social protection in old age remains a luxury limited to a minority of people globally, with just one in five older people in low- and middle-income countries receiving even a basic pension. This huge gap is symptomatic of the wider failure of social protection systems as...

ILO Recommendation 202 is not a legal island More than 18 months after the global community (184 national delegations consisting of governments, workers and employer representatives) unanimously accepted ILO Recommendation No. 202 on social protection floors in June 2012 it seems to be one of the most misunderstood documents...