This working paper presents a series of solutions to the challenging social issues. It builds on the conclusions of “Investing in Child Development and Learning: Ensuring Equity in Decent Work and Sustainable Development,” a forum convened by UNICEF and ILO on 28 February 2012. This paper was used to...

The 2013 edition of The State of the World’s Children is dedicated to the situation of children with disabilities. The report examines the barriers – from inaccessible buildings to dismissive attitudes, from invisibility in official statistics to vicious discrimination – that deprive children with disabilities of their rights and...

A programme run by the Government of Malawi is providing cash transfers to more than 26,000 of the country’s poorest households. FAO’s ‘From Protection to Production’ project (PtoP), run in collaboration with Unicef with funding from DFID and the EU, is evaluating the impact of these cash transfers on...

This paper is intended to provide background information and suggest issues for discussion between the Governing Body and the panel members, which can inform and deepen the ILO’s strategy for the adoption of full and productive employment and decent work as an explicit goal of the global development agenda...

As a continuity to the MDGs, this report presents a vision and a framework for the post-2015 Development Agenda. It first settles the priority transformations with five transformative shifts (leave no one behind, put sustainable development at the core, transform economies for jobs and inclusive growth, build peace and effective,...

This report addresses two of the defining challenges of the twenty-first century: achieving environmental sustainability and turning the vision of decent work for all into a reality. It shows that not only are both challenges urgent, but they are also intimately linked and will have to be addressed together....

The good governance guidelines seek to provide ISSA member organizations with guiding principles and practical guidelines on good governance. The guidelines begin by defining, for the first time, what ISSA means by “good governance”. The governance framework that underpins the guidelines aims to give the user an overview of...

This report summarises a workshop which brought together representatives from various organizations active in social protection. It presents a mapping of existing, comparable, internationally collected data and related indicators on social protection (and more specifically its contribution to ensuring basic income security throughout the life cycle) and a reflection...

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 practical Policy Resource Guide is the first initiative to bring together a synthesis of knowledge, policy innovations and good practices facilitating transition to formality. Chapter 8.1 deals specifically with the extension of social security to persons in the informal economy. Link to the resource guide Link to chapter...

The changing age structure of the population has potentially significant implications for economic development, labour markets and well-being in different development contexts. It raises issues of possible shortages in labour supply and skills, productivity and innovation and the provision of adequate social protection and other services for an increasingly...

In the present report unpaid care work is positioned as a major human rights issue. Focusing on women caregivers, particularly those living in poverty, the Special Rapporteur argues that heavy and unequal care responsibilities are a major barrier to gender equality and to women’s equal enjoyment of human rights,...

This report focuses on the right to participation of people living in poverty. Participation is a basic human right in itself, a precondition or catalyst for the realization and enjoyment of other human rights, and of fundamental importance in empowering people living in poverty to tackle inequalities and asymmetries of...

This case addressed the circumstances of thirty-three women who had been dismissed from various forms of employment on the basis of being pregnant. Article 53 of the Political Constitution of the Republic of Colombia allows for the direct application of international law by domestic legal bodies. Ratified conventions and...

Upon an urgent request, the Constitutional Court of South Africa intervened in a lower court affair to prevent the municipal government and Metropolitan Police Force from hindering what was asserted to be lawful activity by informal traders under the auspices of “Operation Clean Sweep”. Until the legality of the...

Cash transfers are often a good way for developing countries to address economic and social problems. They are less expensive than directly providing goods and services and allow recipients the flexibility to spend on what they need the most, but for many developing countries, the technical requirements for large-scale...

This paper surveys 160 cases where biometric identification has been used for economic, political, and social purposes in developing countries. About half of these cases have been supported by donors. Recognizing the need for more rigorous assessments and more open data on performance, the paper draws some conclusions about...

The ISSA Guidelines on Information and Communication Technology address the issues related to the management and implementation of ICT systems and provide guidance to support social security institutions in carrying out ICT-related activities. Its main goals are to promote the effectiveness and reliability of social security services, as well...

These guidelines are intended to cover all the key components of a contribution collection and compliance system. Some are necessarily general, such as those covering the mission, strategy, communication, etc., and could be applied to other social security contexts, but others are quite specific to contribution collection and compliance....

This comparative study of the International Social Security Association ISSA presents the diverse approaches of the BRICS for the  extension of social security coverage. It shows how responses take into account the local realities and environment in each country, with a focus on innovations that measurabley extend and improve...

Summary: In June 2012, the 101st session of the International Labour Conference (ILC) adopted the Recommendation concerning national floors of social protection, 2012 (No. 202). This article explores the linkages between Recommendation No. 202 and the pre-existing International Labour Organization (ILO) social security standards and its complementarity with these....

This report focuses on the role of social protection in preventing and reducing child labour. It is the first in the series of World Reports on Child Labour called for in the outcome document, the Roadmap, emerging from The Hague Global Child Labour Conference of 2010. The World Report...

This working paper summarizes some of the linkages between gender inequality and access to social protection, then discusses the contribution of national social protection floors as powerful tools in reducing gender inequalities and women’s poverty, and summarizes recent developments in the international legal framework relevant to gender equality and...

While acknowledging the compounded challenges faced by Namibia – including limited institutional capacity, and the fact that Namibia has one of the world’s lowest population densities – this report concludes that progress has not been fast enough. There are still unacceptable levels of inequality along the lines of gender, race,...

The Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights conducted an official visit to Mongolia from 3 to 7 December 2012, during which she collected first-hand information on the situation of people living in extreme poverty and on the impact of key policies relating to poverty alleviation and development...