ILO press conference: launch of World Social Protection Report

Good morning colleagues.

Thank you for being with us here today.

Today we are launching the International Labour Organisation World Social Protection Report 2024 to 2026, Universal Social protection for climate action and a just transition which couldn't be any more topical given what's happening in the world today.

I'm very pleased to have Assistant Director General Mia Seppo with us, ADG Mia Seppo overseas our jobs and social protection strand of work as well as Social Protection Department director.

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With us, just a quick reminder that the report and all associated material, including this press, this press conference is under embargo until 11:30 AM CET, Geneva local time.

And with this, I'd like to hand over to ADG Seppo over to you.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to the launch of the Word Social Protection Report for 2024 to 2026.

The report serves a dual purpose.

Firstly, it provides A comprehensive global overview of the state of social protection.

Secondly, it addresses the most significant ****** to social justice, the climate crisis.

The report illustrates how social protection systems can shield individuals from the consequences of climate breakdown, such as extreme weather and rising temperatures.

It shows how social protection can support much needed climate policies and catalyse a just transition to a more sustainable planet.

During turning our attention to the current state of social protection, the report offers grounds for optimism.

For the first time, over half of the global population, 52.4%, benefit from some form of social protection, marking a significant improvement from the 42.8% recorded in 2015.

However, a distressingly **** number of individuals remain unprotected against common life risks such as illness, poverty, unemployment or lack protection in old age.

Worldwide, 3.8 billion people, predominantly in the global S, lack any form of social protection, leaving them unprepared for life cycle risks and the environmental challenges that lie ahead.

The stark disparity in the right to social protection is a reflection of our deeply divided world.

The most urgent challenge is protecting those at the front line of the climate crisis.

In the 20 countries most at risk, 91.3% of the population or 364,000,000 individuals are without social protection.

The consequences of these protection gaps are already severe and will only intensify as these populations face escalating climate disturbances and the adverse effects of slow onset changes like rising sea levels and desertification.

Now, let's examine some of the report report's findings on social protection, focusing on specific benefits and demographic groups.

A significant gender gap exists in social protection coverage, with 50.1% of women compared to 54.6 for men.

Social protection systems must become more gender responsive as part of a larger set of policies to address inequalities in labour markets, employment and society at large.

Children are particularly vulnerable to climate crisis and will have increased needs for protection.

An overwhelming majority of children worldwide, 76% or 1.8 billion, do not receive child benefits.

Public expenditures on social protection for children needs to increase.

Only 16.7 of unemployed individuals receive unemployment benefits, with notable regional differences.

Young people, self-employed, digital platform workers and those in agriculture and migrants often lack unemployment protection, leaving them vulnerable when job loss or income disruption occurs.

Governments are not fully harnessing the potential of social protection, largely due to persistent gaps in coverage caused by significant underinvestment.

On average, countries allocate 12.9% of their their GDP to social protection.

However, low income countries investor mere 0.8% of their GDP, while 52.3% would be required to ensure a basic level of social protection for all.

Filling these gaps to guarantee minimum social protection for everyone requires concerted international cooperation.

It entails prioritising investment in social protection, including external support mechanisms like loss and damage financing funding, especially for countries with limited fiscal space.

It requires an increase in climate finance to complement ODA.

Studies show that since 2018, over half of the climate finance provided to developed sorry, provided by developed nations was not additional to existing development aid.

Achieving greater tax justice requires increased tax progressivity and eradicating tax evasion and avoidance at both national and international levels.

Climate justice should guide efforts to address the climate crisis and ensure a just transition.

The ones who have contributed the least to the crisis are bearing the blunt brunt of it, and they are those with the most constrained resources and weak systems to prepare and respond.

Therefore, wealthier nations and richer groups within all societies should assume a greater financial responsibility in the pursuit of environmental sustainability.

Developing social protection systems and the expansion of social protection is thus A crucial step in addressing the deep rooted global and domestic disparities that have been further exacerbated by the climate crisis.

By expanding social protection, we can help rectify long standing global and domestic inequalities and inequities rendered more pronounced by the climate crisis.

Social protection not only safeguards individuals from poverty and inequality, but also generates public support for climate policies.

It ensures that workers have income security such as unemployment benefits, which provides them with the stability to acquire new skills and knowledge needed to get a job in the green and low carbon sectors.

Such such measure measures can alleviate concerns among workers, employers and communities regarding the transition, thereby mobilising popular support for a sustainable and just transition.

Having outlined the current state of social protection and its capacity to facilitate a just transition, I now pass to my colleague Sarah Razavi.

Sarah will give you some examples of the ways social protection can support climate action and what policy action is needed.

Sarah, over to you.

Thank you so much, Mia, and good morning to everyone.

You have whetted the appetite and now I want to give some concrete examples of how social protection can contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation and finish with some overarching policy recommendations.

So first, promising examples of mitigation.

That is stopping the drivers of the climate change and climate crisis and keeping fossil fuels in the ground in two concrete ways, the progressive and careful phasing out of what are often very regressive fossil fuel subsidies.

This is commonplace in many middle income countries and it is effective in freeing substantial fiscal space in order to invest in social protection reforms.

Subsidy reforms could drastically reduce CO2 emissions, raise revenues that we calculate can amount to about 11% of GDP, and prevent millions of deaths that are caused by air pollution every year.

But it needs to be done carefully and the sequencing is key, with social protection benefits already in place to compensate households before the subsidies are removed, so as not to face the kind of resistance that often comes when such benefits are not in place.

In order to give people the income security that they need as their prices for electricity and energy increase as a result of subsidy removals.

A second example, the greening of public pension funds, both public and private pension funds, there's enormous tranches of global capital.

We calculate that it's around 50-3 trillion U.S.

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dollars that are nestled in these funds in the OECD countries alone.

Prudently divesting these funds from fossil fuels would be enormously helpful in our mitigation efforts.

And the good news is that some countries are already doing it.

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Moving to adaptation, social protection can also help people adapt to climate change, and it does so by providing the income security and the access to healthcare that really is what is needed to increase resilience.

This helps prevent poverty and to reduce inequalities, which really is effective in increasing capacity of people to cope and to adapt.

And here I want to highlight, for example, Health Protection.

This will help people deal with the spread of new and existing diseases, which we know are also spreading as a result of the climate crisis and also the loss of biodiversity.

A healthier population we know is also way better place to cope with many of the challenges, like the higher temperatures that we know are associated with cardiovascular risks, for example.

Another concrete example is the way in which countries are using their social protection system to compensate workers for lost wages on days when it is too hot for them to work.

This particularly effects workers, for example in sectors such as construction or agriculture.

This is a good case, for example, Algeria, of putting in those kind of benefits to compensate for these wages that are lost.

And another example is of Brazil leveraging its existing social protection system to the recent floods which it faced and was able to provide vital support.

Pensioners, those who were receiving social assistance benefits and also unemployment benefits received both higher levels of benefits as a result of this disruption that was caused and also efforts were made to make those benefits available quicker and with less administrative hurdles that beneficiaries would have to need to address.

Now, the report has many practical examples like these, but what I really want to convey is that we do have at our fingertips all the policy mechanisms needed to protect people from both the everyday life cycle risks that they face as well as ways of dealing with the climate crisis.

So the challenge is not in having policy examples and good practises that we can drawn, the challenge really is in having to address the lack or the dearth of financing for what needs to be done and also if I can say a dearth of political will to make change happen quickly and effectively.

The clear message from this report is the urgent need to build a basic level of Social Security for all, a social protection floor that is robust.

This means getting the basics right and having a social protection that is universal and accessible to everyone, that provides adequate benefits, that can ensure a decent living standard, that is comprehensive and can cover the full range of risks that people face, that is adapted and more responsive to climate shocks, and that is sustainably and equitably financed and grounded in the principles of decent work and rights.

I think these are the key takeaways that we want to leave you with.

No society, regardless of its level of income, can navigate the climate crisis nor be able to enjoy a greener future without having social protection at the helm.

Ultimately, it's time for policy makers to take decisive action for both people and the planet.

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Thank you very much, AG, Seppo and Shara for your presentation.

I would now like to open up the floor to questions.

I just would like to ask you to please introduce yourself and your outlet.

We'll start in the room, please.

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Musa CL Meyer in TV and some Canadians are circular VCU doc on the mode govern the more parallel the PE or development or the people the the guarantee in security social omentos climatic.

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It's clear that the the, the most vulnerable countries are the least prepared and it's also clear that the fiscal space that these countries have doesn't allow them to build a minimum social protection floor on their own.

And this is where the whole ethos of the climate justice comes in.

So we are looking at how both to ensure that climate finance is complementary to existing official development assistance.

There's ongoing discussions about the role of climate sorry, social protection in the loss and damage financing.

And then of course, there's innovative discussions around taxation, tax justice, taxation reform, as well as as just global solidarity.

I think one of of of, you know, the key conversations that will happen also in the summit of the future is how do we ensure the global solidarity needed to protect the countries at the front lines of the climate crisis.

But certainly financing is going to be key for it, but not the only one.

As Shara was mentioning earlier, it's important to focus the effort to help countries get the basics right so get their systems in place that can then be adapted to respond when a crisis hits.

Media Musa ASI al mayadi TV the COVID-19 the the security social on development.

There is some effects still to now from COVID-19.

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So maybe just on the COVID-19, as I mean we have been speaking not only in this report, but other reports of the ILO, the recovery from COVID is happening, but it's very uneven in terms of enterprises, in terms of employment picking up and providing the decent jobs and the financing that is needed domestically for building social protection systems That, you know we know is clearly the case.

But also with the changes that happened after the pandemic, the rise in interest rates, which have made the debt burden of many, both middle income and low income countries, very difficult to service and servicing that debt has become extremely onerous.

And countries are spending often more on paying interest rates than on being on their health, education and social protection investment in those three areas combined.

So these are also longer lasting legacies of COVID which are continuing and which have led to the cost of living crisis and the fiscal crisis that many countries are facing.

And this continues to make it difficult, particularly for low income countries to find the fiscal space that they need domestically to be able to close the financing gap.

As Mia mentioned, there are global discussions and efforts.

Mia mentioned the summit of the future, which is very important.

But also in 2025, we're going to have the Financing for Development conference, which is going to take place where there will be discussions about how the global financial architecture can be better prepared to really support low income countries by being able to deal with a debt issue which is causing a lot of distress in many developing countries and taking away the fiscal space that they need.

Also addressing the issue of tax evasion and tax avoidance, both within countries but also globally, and being able to have greater revenues coming in, particularly from taxation of multinational corporations that will really need to pay their fair of their fair share of taxes as well in order to support the financing requirements, particularly of low but also of middle income countries.

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One of the obvious lessons from the the Kovid response was that countries with very **** levels of informality had big numbers of people without any form of social protection.

So ILO is focusing on supporting countries with the formalisation process and thereby addressing both the decent work deficit but also the extension of social protection to people who had no social protection during the pandemic.

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Any other questions in the room?

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And I had three question I'm.

Sorry my English, but I.

Intend many.

Countries have see a grow number of climate relation disasters my country in my state of original he'll granted to sue in South of Brazil had severe flawed the effect million of per person in last May.

What does the?

Report recommend to countries regarding the link between social protection.

And clinical Latin disasters.

Thank you for the question.

Let me let me start then maybe Shara wants to compliment just to, to note that the Brazil response to the devastating flood, this is a really good example of why countries that have a basic social protection system in place are actually able to respond, as Shara mentioned in in her remarks, able to then respond to, to the most vulnerable to tackle both vulnerabilities and possible job impact very quickly by adapting the existing social protection system.

So it's a good lesson in terms of then looking at the challenges of the countries at the frontline of the climate crisis who do not have even the basics in place in terms of social protection systems that can then be adapted.

Now given then after a basic system is in place, there will always be need for making sure that the governance structures are properly in place to to respond and to adjust and to make sure that there's financial sustainability of the social protection system.

ILO is is a tripartite institution and we support countries also ensure that the governance structures take into account the tripartite conversations in terms of making sure the governance and the financial sustainability is carefully considered.

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Thank you for those questions, and I think Mia has already answered the questions, but I just want to add maybe a point on the role of trade unions, which we think are, you know, have been and continue to be very important agents of change.

And in this regard, they can lobby their governments, you know, to find fiscal space for social protection.

They can also help the extension of social protection to workers in the informal economy, which, as Mia mentioned, is a very important challenge that many countries are facing because they know which groups of workers, you know, have some contributory capacity and would be easier to include and to extend social insurance schemes to.

They also have a very important role to play in making sure that by informing their members about new policies and legislation so that workers have the information that they need about their entitlements and about the benefits that they can receive and how to sort of navigate the system and how to also support it and have faith in the system and continue to contribute to it.

There is, as we know, a lot of evasion of payments and contributions, and I think building that trust in systems is absolutely critical so that both employers and workers continue to make their contributions so that these social contributory systems can stay financially viable.

And I think as agents that are closest to workers, they will also know first hand how social protection systems can be improved, can be made more accessible so that those who contribute to them can also benefit from them.

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Thank you very much.

I don't see any more hands in the room.

I online, I don't see any hands up online for to ask questions.

So if we don't have any more questions, I think we can close this press conference.

Thank you very much for being with us today and have a good rest of the day.