Equality Act 2010
The Equality Act 2010 legally protects people from discrimination in the workplace and in wider society. It replaced previous anti-discrimination laws with a single Act, making the law easier to understand and strengthening protection in some situations. It sets out the different ways in which it’s unlawful to treat...
Read MoreImproving the Safety and Health of Young Workers
Overview of Non-contributory Social Protection Programmes in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region Through a Child and Equity Lens
Through the definition of the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), countries have acknowledged the importance of social protection for poverty reduction. Namely, target 1.3 of SDG 1, “End poverty in all its forms everywhere”, calls for the implementation of nationally appropriate social protection systems and measures for...
Read MoreNational Policy on HIV/AIDS and the World of Work
This policy, based on principles of human rights, aims to guide the national response to HIV/AIDS in reducing and managing the impact of the epidemic in the world of work. Specifically the policy aims to: Prevent transmission of HIV infection amongst workers and their families; Protect rights of those...
Read MoreReproductive Health Policy
The purpose of this Policy & Strategy document is to outline policy statements of the Ministry of Health in support of Reproductive Health including maternal and neonatal health, demonstrating its contribution to the achievement of improved health and wellbeing in Fiji. It maps out a framework of key strategic...
Read MoreeGov4women Online Toolkit – Unit 2: Incorporating a gender lens in e-service delivery
The eGov4women is a public resource on the design and implementation of gender-responsive e-government institutional ecosystems. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by UN Member States in 2015 affirms that “the spread of information and communication technology and global interconnectedness has great potential to accelerate human progress, to...
Read MoreThe Case for a Progressive Tax: From Basic Research to Policy Recommendations
This paper presents the case for tax progressivity based on recent results in optimal tax theory. We consider the optimal progressivity of earnings taxation and whether capital income should be taxed. We critically discuss the academic research on these topics and when and how the results can be used...
Read MoreSocial Protection for Indigenous Peoples
Men, women and children from indigenous peoples are estimated to represent 4.5 per cent of the world’s population. They constitute more than 5,000 different groups with distinct cultures, forms of social organization, livelihood strategies, practices, notions of poverty and wellbeing, values, and beliefs profoundly embedded in their collective relationship with...
Read MoreThe Need for Transparency: Designing Rights-Based and Accountable Social Protection Systems
A human rights-based approach to social protection requires transparency, accountability and accessibility to be an integral part of the design of policies and programmes. However, policy makers often do not consider whether social protection programmes enable or hinder human rights; focusing instead on issues such as cost effectiveness, distributional...
Read MoreHow to Design Inclusive Social Protection Systems
This policy guide, developed by ESCAP together with Development Pathways, explains how to design inclusive and robust social protection systems and focuses on tax-financed income security. It explains why universal schemes are better at reaching the poor than targeted schemes, and what policy options to consider when designing inclusive...
Read MoreWhy We Need Social Protection
This policy guide, developed by ESCAP together with Development Pathways, explains the basic principles of social protection and the impact it can have on poverty reduction, social cohesion, economic growth and the environment. It shows how investing in inclusive social protection can accelerate progress toward achieving the Sustainable Development...
Read MoreExtending Social Protection in Asia and the Pacific
State and Corporate Accountability in the Democratic Republic of Congo
Summary: In 2004, a small number of lightly armed rebels tried to take control of Kilwa, a remote fishing town in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Congo). About 50 km away from Kilwa there is a copper and silver mine, where Anvil Mining Company (Anvil Mining), a small Australian-Canadian...
Read MoreThe Distribution of Gains from Globalization
We study economic globalization as a multidimensional process and investigate its effect on incomes. In a panel of 147 countries during 1970-2014, we apply a new instrumental variable, exploiting globalization’s geographically diffusive character, and find differential gains from globalization both across and within countries: Income gains are substantial for...
Read MoreAn Economy for the 99%
New estimates show that just eight men own the same wealth as the poorest half of the world. As growth benefits the richest, the rest of society – especially the poorest – suffers. The very design of our economies and the principles of our economics have taken us to...
Read MoreUnpaid Care – Why and How to Invest: Policy briefing for national governments
Investments which support households to better meet their unpaid care responsibilities – such as childcare, food preparation and laundry – can yield substantial returns in terms of macro-economic growth, job creation and other key government priorities. This briefing looks at selected evidence and examples and argues that governments should:...
Read MoreThe Political and Social Economy of Care in a Development Context: Conceptual Issues, Research Questions and Policy Options
Care (whether paid or unpaid) is crucial to human well-being and to the pattern of economic development. Some analysts emphasize the significance of care for economic dynamism and growth. Others see care in much larger terms, as part of the fabric of society and integral to social development. Citizenship...
Read MoreBuilding Trade Union Power with Gender Equality: The Case of the Unified Workers’ Central of Brazil
The Unified Workers’ Central (Central Única dos Trabalhadores, CUT) of Brazil, one of the world’s largest trade union federations, the most important in Latin America, and the country’s most representative, in 2015 implemented gender parity in its decision making bodies at national and state level. With this step it...
Read MoreComplementarities between the ASEAN Community Vision 2025 and the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: A Framework for Action
ASEAN countries have committed themselves to the implementation of two parallel but interrelated processes: the ASEAN Community Vision 2025 (ASEAN Vision 2025) and the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (2030 Agenda). From the outset ASEAN Member States underlined the complementarity of these two agendas in their efforts...
Read MorePro-poor or anti-poor? The World Bank and IMF’s approach to social protection
In recent years, the World Bank and IMF have played an influential role in shaping national social protection policies. Social protection comprises a significant share of World Bank loans, reaching almost 10 per cent of lending to low-income countries in 2017, while around 10 per cent of IMF loans...
Read MoreTax on Large Fortunes: the recent international debate and the situation in Brazil
Many discussions have taken place in Brazil about legislation pertaining to the Tax on Large Fortunes (Imposto sobre Grandes Fortunas—IGF). In the current scenario, with the country facing a second consecutive annual decrease in tax revenue, the subject of the implementation of the IGF is gaining some traction, with...
Read MoreTransformation towards sustainable and resilient societies in Asia and the Pacific
This report takes stock of the changing nature of increasingly complex risks in Asia and the Pacific, and the stresses and shocks that are affecting a diverse region’s prospects for achieving the SDGs. It highlights the effects of selected natural hazards, commodity shocks and pollution shocks on the region’s...
Read MoreWomen at work: addressing the gaps
Despite progress in education and health worldwide, women still face significant barriers to engage as full economic citizens. There are significant gender gaps in wages and labour market participation. In many cases, women also face barriers and lack the assets needed to become entrepreneurs. These inequalities remain large, persistent...
Read MoreWomen’s economic empowerment programmes: towards a ‘double boon’ instead of drudgery and depletion
Recent research carried out in four countries (India, Nepal, Tanzania and Rwanda) under the framework of the Growth and Equal Opportunities for Women (GrOW) programme has highlighted the drudgery of both paid work and unpaid care work faced by women in poor families, leading to the depletion of their...
Read MoreChild Vulnerability and Social Protection in Kenya
The definition of child vulnerability used in Kenya’s social protection sector was shaped in the early 2000s, when policymakers noted an increasing number of orphans as a consequence of the AIDS pandemic and developed the National Plan of Action for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC). Kenya’s Cash Transfer for...
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