This brief synthesizes research findings, analysis and policy recommendations on transforming pension systems to reduce gender gaps and protect women’s income security in old age. Ageing has a female face. Women not only live longer than men but are also less likely to enjoy income security and economic independence...

This brief synthesizes research findings, analysis and policy recommendations for realizing the triple dividend from early childhood education and care (ECEC) services. ECEC services have come to occupy an important place on the global policy agenda. While some developed countries have long invested in this area, a growing number...

This brief synthesizes research findings, analysis and policy recommendations on making social protection floors work for women. The idea of a social protection floor (SPF) is now firmly established on the global development agenda. Defined as a set of minimum guarantees, including basic income security for children, working-age adults,...

The present report begins with an analysis of the confusing approaches to human rights taken by the World Bank in its legal policy, public relations, policy analysis, operations and safeguards. The Special Rapporteur then seeks to explain why the Bank has historically been averse to acknowledging and taking account...

This report examines a range of issues, from women and girls lack of access to sanitation and hygiene services to their strategies for dealing with menstrual hygiene management while playing their roles in families, communities, at work, at school, etc. The study also addresses the impact of perpetrated beliefs...

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), more than one billion people are undernourished. Over two billion suffer from a lack of essential vitamins and minerals in their food. Nearly six million children die every year from malnutrition or related diseases, that is about...

International human rights law recognizes everyone’s right to an adequate standard of living, including adequate housing. Despite the central place of this right within the global legal system, well over a billion people are not adequately housed. Millions around the world live in life- or health-threatening conditions, in overcrowded...

This series of handbooks focuses on the challenges of creating strong community-based organizations, power analysis the role of networks in delivering better governance how to engage successfully with stakeholders and how to improve governance and make it sustainable.   Link to...

This is not a manual or a toolkit for the way the rights to water and sanitation should be implemented, and should not be read as guidance for how the rights to water and sanitation should or could be realised. It provides discussion and analysis of existing practices, which,...

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...

Twenty years after the landmark Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, and at a time when the global community is defining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for the post-2015 era, the international consensus on the need to achieve gender equality seems stronger than ever before. Empowering women and...

Par l’adoption de cette Stratégie, le Gouvernement de Côte d’Ivoire s’inscrit dans les grandes orientations adoptées au niveau international par les Nations Unies et au niveau régional par l’Union Africaine. En avril 2009, le Système des Nations Unies a proposé un « socle de protection sociale » comme une...

This general comment was adopted by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in 1995. With regard to social security, it sets out the following: 28. Social security and income‑maintenance schemes are of particular importance for persons with disabilities. As stated in the Standard Rules, “States should ensure the...

The world population is ageing at a steady, quite spectacular rate. The total number of persons aged 60 and above rose from 200 million in 1950 to 400 million in 1982 and is projected to reach 600 million in the year 2001 and 1.2 billion by the year 2025,...

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...

The human right to adequate food is recognized in several instruments under international law. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights deals more comprehensively than any other instrument with this right. Pursuant to article 11.1 of the Covenant, States parties recognize “the right of everyone to an...

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 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...

The joint statement aims to build greater consensus on the importance of child-sensitive social protection. It lays out the particular vulnerabilities that children and families face, the ways that social protection can impact children even when not focused on them, and outlines principles and approaches for undertaking child-sensitive social...

Recommendation No. 202 is the first international instrument to offer guidance to countries to close social security gaps and progressively achieve universal protection through the establishment and maintenance of comprehensive social security systems. To this aim, the Recommendation calls for (1) the implementation, as a priority, of social protection...

This report addresses the impact of the current global financial crisis on people living in extreme poverty and the enjoyment of their human rights. It stresses that the crisis offers an opportunity to move beyond the restructuring of the global financial and monetary systems and to place people at the...

The report focuses on a number of flagship programmes, including the Tekoporã conditional cash transfer programme, the Abrazo (“hug”) Programme and the Family Health Units Programme. The report recognizes that major strides have been made in the area of rights-based public policy planning. It also reviews the achievements of the social protection...

In the present report, the United Nations Independent Expert on human rights and extreme poverty sets out the parameters of a human rights-based approach to recovery from the global economic and financial crises, with a particular focus on the most vulnerable and marginalized groups. She urges States to see...

Article 9 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (the Covenant) provides that, “The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to social security, including social insurance.” The right to social security is of central importance in guaranteeing human dignity for all...