First published in 1948, the International Social Security Review is the principal international quarterly publication in the field of social security.
The article discusses the current practices for providing social protection to refugees and migrants, focusing primarily on low- and middle-income (LMICs) destination countries. It examines formal providers of social protection, including state institutions, development agencies and humanitarian organizations. In recent years, there has been an increase in funding from multilateral donors, especially in the context of the COVID–19 pandemic, leading to the establishment of national assistance programmes in LMICs that also encompass refugees and to a lesser extent migrant workers. International agencies play a crucial role in providing humanitarian cash assistance to refugees, given their status under international protection under the 1951 refugee Convention and related protocols. Access to social insurance remains tied to formal employment. Social insurance entitlements for migrants are often restricted and refugees are typically excluded from formal employment in LMICs. Regarding labour market interventions, refugees and migrants are often excluded from national programmes, with migrants’ residence permits being often tied to employment. For refugees, international agencies take a prominent role in providing livelihood programmes aimed at enhancing income-generating opportunities, economic inclusion and financial independence. However, the effectiveness of these interventions remains unclear, lacking rigorous evidence, and often being short-term with limited coverage.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) outlines the rights for every child, including the right to benefit from social security and the right to a standard of living adequate for their physical, mental, spiritual, moral, and social development. The UNCRC is the most widely ratified human rights treaty to date. However, millions of children continue to be denied their rights and face poverty, vulnerability and social exclusion, merely because they are displaced – internally or across borders. Children bear the heaviest burden of displacement, despite not being responsible for its triggers. This reality underlines that a significant population is being “left behind”, threatening progress to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals as part of international efforts to end poverty and ensure all people enjoy peace and prosperity. This article advocates for inclusive social protection systems for displaced children by highlighting the difficulties they encounter, emphasizing the potential benefits of social protection, and assessing the current status of inclusive social protection for this vulnerable group. Drawing on emerging lessons from UNICEF’s experience across several refugee and internal displacement contexts, such as Brazil, Ethiopia, Slovakia, and Türkiye, the article also offers recommendations to strengthen inclusive social protection systems specifically tailored to meet the humanitarian and development needs of displaced children.
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, has the mandate to save lives and build better futures for millions of forcibly displaced and stateless people. This contribution sets out UNHCR’s mandated roles concerning displaced population groups and details the nature of the humanitarian and human development challenges that confront the international community. In this important regard, the social protection coverage extension objectives of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Global Partnership for Universal Social Protection (USP), to leave no one behind, are considered essential.
This 2023 special issue of the International Social Security Review contributes to the core debate framed by the international ambition of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals to leave no one behind and does so through the lens of social security coverage extension. Specifically, the special issue addresses the social security rights of selected population groups prioritized by the current programme of work of the International Social Security Association; namely, displaced populations, amongst whom children represent a significant proportion, and international migrant workers. Implicit in this choice is a wish to collate, analyse, enrich, and disseminate knowledge to forge a stronger consensus to help realize effective social security coverage for all.