Inequality is growing in almost all nations, and wages are amongst the lowest on record as a share of wealth. Unemployment is the highest on record and while more than 50 per cent of workers are in vulnerable or precarious work 40 per cent of workers are trapped in...

Social protection is essential for social justice and inclusion, strong democracies, equitable growth and resilience during crises. The components of social protection programmes have diverse shapes and historic and cultural backgrounds. They are influenced by demographic, geographic, and administrative requirements and need to be context and country specific. Governments...

The Yemen National Social Protection Monitoring Survey (NSPMS) is a household longitudinal survey with a nationally representative balanced sample of 6,397 households (of an initial sample of 7,152). Each household in the balanced sample was visited on a quarterly basis over a 12-month period between October 2012 and September...

This handbook has been developed to: clarify the meaning of the human rights to water and sanitation; explain the obligations that arise from these rights; provide guidance on implementing the human rights to water and sanitation; share some examples of good practice and show how these rights are being...

In April 2000, the Japanese government launched its fifth social insurance scheme, the Long-term Care Insurance, to respond to the increasing demand for long-term care. Since then, the Long-term Care Insurance has been established in Japanese society as an essential system for people’s lives, while it has various challenges....

Japan’s health insurance coverage has been receiving great interest from other countries. However, how and why Japan achieved universal health coverage about half a century ago has not been unravelled. This paper aims to analyze Japan’s path to universal health insurance coverage from various perspectives and draw policy lessons...

Although there have been improvements over the past decade in social indicators such as life expectancy, primary school enrolment and literacy, the Arab region continues to face serious development challenges, including high rates of poverty, food insecurity and hunger, and child and maternal mortality.Extreme poverty increased from 4.1 per...

Disability is an intrinsic aspect of the human condition and most people will experience disability at some point in their lives. Globally, one billion people—or 15 per cent of the world population—are estimated to be living with disability. By contrast, Arab countries report comparatively low prevalence of disability, ranging...

Welfare systems in Arab countries are at their limits. Stretched by substantial population growth over the past years, the Governments are increasingly unable to integrate all people from all ages, all regions and all income groups into the labour market and into social protection schemes. After initial years of...

Relevant articles: Article 10(1) The Federation has powers of legislation and execution in the following matters: 11. labour legislation in so far as it does not fall under art. 12; social and contractual insurance; nursing care allowance; social compensation legislation; chambers of labour with the exception of those relating...

This case addresses the plight of as many as 100,000 children (known as talibés), who while attending Qur’anicschools (daaras) in Senegal, are forced by some instructors to beg in the streets, to secure their own survival and enrich the teachers. The children live away from their families, often in...

The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Thematic Guideline is a reference document targeting the wide ranging internal and external stakeholders in social protection. The purpose of the Guideline is to provide basic information and knowledge about social protection such as an overview of social protection around the world, trends...

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

This publication provides an up-to-date overview of Austria’s welfare services and benefits. It highlights the basic aspects and benefits of individual systems catering to families, old age, health, unemployment, social distress as well as the development of social spending and its funding....

As the development agenda beyond 2015 takes shape, it is increasingly being recognized that inequality is an impediment to the integration of economic growth, social inclusion and environmental sustainability. Despite high and enduring economic growth and significant progress in terms of poverty eradication, inequalities persist in Asia and the...

Over the past two decades, Africa’s strong economic growth has paved the way for poverty reduction. Between 1995 and 2008, the percentage of the African population living in poverty fell from 58 percent to 48 percent (World Bank 2011). Nevertheless, high poverty levels persist, especially in rural areas, and...

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...

This paper was prepared in the context of the United Nations Inter-Agency Support Group (IASG) on Indigenous Issues, which aims to strengthen  cooperation and coordination among UN agencies, funds, entities and programmes on indigenous peoples’ issues and to support the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, and to promote...

This collection examines the human rights to social security and social protection from a women’s rights perspective. The contributors stress the need to address women’s poverty and exclusion within a human rights framework that takes account of gender. The chapters unpack the rights to social security and protection and...

As the data in this new edition of the Innocenti Report Card series show, in the past five years, rising numbers of children and their families have experienced difficulty in satisfying their most basic material and educational needs. Most importantly, the Great Recession is about to trap a generation...

Unpaid care work is a critical human rights issue, as well as a major obstacle to gender equality and poverty reduction. This article draws attention to the impact of heavy, intensive, and unequal burdens of unpaid care work on the human rights of women living in poverty, and analyses...

This article argues that the effects of the crises themselves are being compounded rather than relieved by the measures that many governments are taking in response. These are seriously threatening the lives and livelihoods of millions of the poorest people, and are having a devastating effect on their enjoyment of...

The meanings of care are contested – the approaches to care in the development and feminist literature have varied greatly. At the same time, care is a common word, loaded with moral meanings concerning notions of duty and love, and care is commonly associated with women. These associations are...

This paper argues that reforms implemented in 2008, the re-nationalization of the private pension funds in Argentina and the introduction of a social pension in Chile have moved both countries toward greater social inclusion in old-age protection. In the case of Chile this was achieved in 2008 after extensive...

Social protection is now widely accepted as encompassing a set of programmes designed to assist individuals and households in maintaining basic consumption and living standards when confronted by a range of contingencies across the life course (including ill-health, unemployment and old age). While often considered a luxury available only...