First published in 1948, the International Social Security Review is the principal international quarterly publication in the field of social security.
During the COVID-19 pandemic there were a great many social protection policy responses. There were also calls for emergency basic income (EBI) to be adopted as a mitigation response. However, it seems that only one country adopted an EBI. Nonetheless, EBI is likely to feature in future policy discussion and action, especially as a crisis-mitigation tool. This has implications for the future of rights-based social protection. Consequently, this article aims to examine whether EBI would comply with international social security standards and whether it could contribute to building and strengthening rights-based universal social protection systems.
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.
For the public employment services of many Member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the importance of using profiling tools for job seekers is increasing rapidly in importance. With this trend, there is also widening concern about the risks of an over reliance on such tools. Part of the concern lies with a lack of transparency concerning how such tools work. This article aims to address this by offering a detailed investigation of the Work Profiler – the instrument used in the Netherlands by the Institute for Employee Benefits (Uitvoeringsinstituut Werknemersverzekeringen – UWV) to predict re-employment success and provide a diagnosis of key factors hindering job seekers’ return to work. Professionals use these insights to deepen their understanding of the situation of job seekers and decide together with job seeker how to support their return to work. UWV decided to maintain and revise the Work Profiler through a large-scale study involving a sample of 53,238 people. Work Profiler 1.0 was developed in 2007–2010 and has been in use on a regional basis since 2011 and nationwide since 2015. This article explains how the new tool (version 2.0; implemented in 2018) works and, most importantly, demonstrates the choices made to ensure that it functions well and is used effectively by professionals. These latter two aspects are rarely discussed in the literature.
More often than not, the existing modes of contribution collection and benefit payment of social security organizations are adapted to the collective arrangements that characterize employer‐employee relationships. Extending coverage to individuals in difficult‐to‐reach groups, however, may require new modalities of service that can cope with many separate, secure transactions rather than a few bulk data transfers between organizations. Recent developments in electronic payment show its wide applicability in enabling huge volumes of such individual transactions. It is in this light that the article explores the potentials of this technology and identifies possible arrangements through which electronic payments could surmount barriers that stand in the way of covering difficult‐to‐reach groups. The high level of mobile phone penetration on a global scale augurs well for using e‐payment mechanisms to collect social security contributions and to deliver social security benefits and services. A generic model is used to describe the requisite elements to implement electronic payments in social protection programmes. Based on empirical evidence of current social protection practices from around the world, five scenarios are presented to describe possible configurations for electronic payment, from the simplest to the most sophisticated. The broader objective is to contribute in a practical manner to the international commitment to extend social protection to all, as defined by the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
The possession and use of a personal social security number helps to structure people’s daily lives. However, despite its fundamental normative importance, the social security number remains a little-known entity. Increasingly universal and yet diverse in form, it is a legal and technical norm which is as much a mechanism for surveillance and monitoring as it is a necessary instrument for giving effect to social rights. Analysis of this constituent element of social security systems permits as assessment of some of the technical difficulties presented by the ever-increasing movement of people and data. Overcoming these technical difficulties should permit to envisage a first technical step towards realizing a universal and global social security system.
The development of social security policies and programmes raises the need for their coordination to enhance effectiveness as well as to prevent the fragmentation of social policies, programmes and services. Although there are expected benefits, implementing coordinated programmes poses significant technical challenges, which increase the complexities and costs of projects and hinder the achievement of such initiatives. Some of the main difficulties are related to system and information integration (Interoperability) as well as the ability to enforce data security and privacy regulations. To help meet such challenges, the International Social Security Association (ISSA) has developed Guidelines on Information and Communication Technology to support the integrated ICT-based implementation of social programmes. This article reviews existing scenarios, discusses the benefits and challenges of coordinated approaches, and offers models to show how to implement such types of systems while applying the ISSA Guidelines.
The concept of nudge theory, from the fields of behavioural science, political theory and behavioural economics, has sparked government initiatives yielding significant public value. A nudge is a method for predictably altering behaviour without restricting consumer choice options or significantly changing incentives. Nudges work by leveraging default human behaviour such as the tendency to take the path of least resistance when exercising choice. Government agencies have run many successful trials with simple textual nudges designed to positively influence behaviours such as tax compliance, voter registration and student attrition. This article develops the concept of the digital nudge in social security administration. The digital nudge leverages predictive analytics technology within a digital government framework to support a social investment policy approach. Based on a literature review of nudges within a digital government context, the article identifies examples of innovation within social security administration where nudges are contributing to better social outcomes. At the same time, concerns regarding ethics and privacy are identified as nudges are applied at the individual rather than the population level. The use of data and personal information to drive the nudge process has to be managed in such a way that individual rights are protected. This requirement has to be reconciled with the broader interests of society in achieving affordable outcomes, the parameters of which are determined through the political process.
The extension of social protection to all has become a central policy objective, both nationally and internationally. A considerable number of middle- and low-income countries have undertaken substantial efforts to extend social protection, while the international community reaffirmed its commitment to the extension of social protection through the adoption of the ILO Recommendation concerning National Floors of Social Protection, No. 202 (2012). This article reviews the legal provisions and the implementation of the Indian Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), legislated in 2005, and does so in the light of the more recent provisions of ILO Recommendation No. 202. Since its introduction ten years ago, MGNREGA has provided a source of income to rural workers, increased wage rates, achieved high female participation rates and created durable assets. India’s local governance bodies, Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI), have been empowered and involved in the processes of planning and monitoring. However, despite successes, there have been considerable shortcomings in implementation. This article highlights two central themes: first, the innovative policy framework of the Act, which brings together rights-based entitlements, demand-driven employment, and citizen-centred monitoring. Second, it assesses the accessibility and adequacy of benefits in the implementation of MGNREGA. We conclude that MGNREGA offers potential for South-South learning, both in terms of policy-design and implementation.
Between 2011 and 2013, the International Labour Organization, in collaboration with governments and several United Nations agencies working as part of the Social Protection Floor Initiative, conducted social protection assessment-based national dialogue (ABND) exercises in Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand and Viet Nam. The exercises were carried out in order to take stock of existing social protection realities in the respective countries, including social insurance, social assistance and anti-poverty programmes. These inventories present a comprehensive picture of what elements of national social protection floors (SPFs) are in place, where "holes" in national floors exist, and provide a framework within which to propose recommendations for the further design and implementation of social protection provisions that guarantee at least the SPF to the entire population. This article describes the methodology for conducting ABND exercises, the situational analysis of the SPF in four countries, and the policy recommendations that were formulated for achieving basic health care and income security for children, the working-age population and the elderly. The results of preliminary calculations of the cost of implementing proposed policy options are also outlined.
The adoption of the International Labour Organization Recommendation concerning national floors of social protection, 2012 (No. 202) highlights the global importance of the extension of social security coverage. To maximize the positive impacts of coverage extension, not only should benefits and services be provided to the widest number of people and cover the greatest number of risks, but benefits have to be adequate. Whilst not without challenges, the level of coverage can be defined and measured. However, the definition of what is an adequate benefit is often less clear and has often relied on the use of one measure – the replacement ratio – to determine the relative adequacy of cash benefits. Given the multiple aims of social security systems, the use of a broader measure of adequacy that goes beyond cash benefit levels is not only more appropriate but necessary. In a context where financial constraints are arguably greater than ever, this article looks at the importance of adequacy and why such a broader consideration is required to measure the other aspects of benefit and service provision. It highlights how such a multivariable analysis could be constructed and the challenges of doing so. By attempting to measure if other goals of benefit provision are met – including quality of service, labour market aims, security of benefits and interaction with other stakeholders – the article seeks to contribute to widening the debate.
Despite progress on extending social health protection coverage, most low‐income countries are still far from achieving universal health coverage and thus key objectives related to improvements in health, such as those aimed at by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), will almost certainly not be realized by 2015. Principally affected are the most vulnerable populations: the rural and urban poor and workers in the informal economy and their families. It is of particular concern that progress might not only remain limited but even be reversed if policies continue to fail to address the root causes of gaps and deficits in health coverage. This article provides evidence that these causes lie both within and beyond the health sector and are strongly related to poverty and other forms of vulnerability. It argues that sustainable progress towards universal health coverage can only be achieved in an adequate time frame when focusing simultaneously on i) extending health coverage and improving access to needed health care; ii) providing income security through income support to those in need; iii) addressing limitations, or the inability to participate, in income generation from work; and iv) implementing coherent policies within and across the social, economic and health sectors that set priorities on poverty alleviation. Such policies can best be implemented in the context of national social protection floors (SPF) that focus on access to at least essential health care and on providing at least basic income security over the life cycle to all in need. Implementing SPFs may result in breaking the mutual linkages between ill health, poverty and other vulnerabilities and achieving sustainable progress towards universal health coverage and other social protection objectives.
The effectiveness of social protection in combating poverty and vulnerability, cushioning shocks, attenuating inequality, and supporting long‐term growth is well‐established, but effective social protection systems have long been seen as an unaffordable luxury in many developing and low‐income countries. The social protection floor concept aims at providing a guaranteed minimum of social protection at a reasonable cost, even in resource‐constrained circumstances, serving as a platform for the gradual implementation of a full social protection system. Introducing and maintaining or extending the floor requires the mobilization of fiscal space, both immediately and in the future. The article argues that efforts to generate fiscal space must carefully consider issues of predictability, as well as the impact of present funding choices on fiscal and debt sustainability, macroeconomic stability, inequality, poverty reduction and growth, and hence on future fiscal space. It examines from this perspective some of the implications of generating fiscal space through additional domestic resource mobilization, expenditure reallocation or efficiency gains, reduction of debt service, or external funding. The article also presents some evidence of a wide range of recent interventions that have been financed at reasonable cost on a sustainable basis in countries at different levels of income and development, using both own resources and external funds.
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. In response to the questions as to whether the existing ILO social security standards have lost their relevance and whether the new Recommendation has been adopted with a view to replacing the existing ones, the article concludes that its adoption not only complements but also broadens and strengthens the existing international social security code. Together, Recommendation No. 202 and the ILO social security Conventions are viewed as providing a complete and adequate normative framework for the establishment and maintenance of comprehensive social security systems.
Civil society wholeheartedly supports the concept of social protection floors and, in particular, the adoption of the ILO Recommendation concerning national floors of social protection, 2012 (No. 202). The implementation of social protection floors will be a great step forward towards the reduction of poverty and inequality as well as to the empowerment of people worldwide. The civil society movement is convinced that the rights‐based approach is the most effective way to design and implement empowering and sustainable social protection floors. With regard to the human rights‐based implementation of the social protection guarantees, it has four specific attention points: i) respect for the rights and dignity of people holding rights to social security; ii) full participation of civil society; iii) universal coverage at the local, national and international level; iv) and concern for vulnerable groups. Following the 101st International Labour Conference in 2012, 59 civil society organizations set up the “Coalition for a Social Protection Floor”, whose two main tasks are: to monitor and contribute to the universal implementation of social protection floors at local and national levels; and to promote the social protection floor concept in global policy‐making, such as in the discussions on the post‐2015 development agenda.
This article addresses the influence of the International Labour Organization (ILO) on other international organizations and global agencies which resulted in their endorsement of the Social Protection Floor (SFP) concept. By 2012 the concept had been endorsed by the United Nations in the shape of the UN Chief Executives Board's SPF‐Initiative, the World Bank in its new Social Protection and Labor Strategy and by the G20 at the Cannes Summit. Furthermore the IMF had agreed to work with the ILO to explore the options for creating fiscal space within countries to fund SPFs. Special Rapporteurs for the UN Human Rights Council had also in 2012 called for the setting up of a global fund for social protection to enable poorer countries to develop their floors. By 2012 a new coordinating authority, the Social Protection Inter‐Agency Cooperation Board (SPIAC‐B), had been ushered into existence to facilitate inter‐agency cooperation. This article describes and explains how these developments came about. It asks if the reality of increased global social governance cooperation in the field of social protection is as effective as it seems or whether there are new contradictions, overlapping and competing mandates and policy disagreements at the global level.
In June 2012, the global community made an important step to firmly establish social protection as part of national and global development strategies. The International Labour Conference unanimously adopted the Recommendation concerning national floors of social protection, 2012 (No. 202), providing concrete content to the human right to social security. This article puts the Recommendation into its historical standard setting and development policy context, reviews the emergence of the social protection floor concept, and analyses the contents of the new Recommendation and some of its political hotspots. It then explores whether the new instrument has the potential to change the social reality in the 185 ILO member States. It concludes that its adoption is an unprecedented demonstration of good will and far‐reaching global social policy consensus. However, in order to help create space for national policy change, the campaign to achieve at least a minimum of social security for all needs to continue and has to be kept on the international agenda. In closing, the article lists strategies that the global coalition behind this campaign needs to pursue for social security to remain or become an inalienable objective in national and international development strategies.
In June 2011 the International Labour Conference (ILC) adopted a Resolution and Conclusions setting out the Organization's new social security strategy, which aims at supporting Members in building and maintaining comprehensive social security systems on the basis of a two‐dimensional approach: (1) (“horizontal” dimension) establishing – as a priority – nationally‐defined sets of basic social security guarantees to provide a floor of protection to all in need as soon as possible; (2) (“vertical” dimension) extending the scope and levels of social security coverage as guided by Convention No. 102 (1952) and other existing social security standards to as many people as possible and as soon as possible. In June 2012, the ILC completed this strategy with a new international labour standard: Recommendation concerning national floors of social protection, 2012 (No. 202). The Recommendation is deemed a breakthrough in global social policy, whereby the establishing of national social protection floors may close prevailing gaps in social security coverage and help countries to effectively address poverty and vulnerability. This special double issue offers analysis of the process that culminated in the Recommendation's adoption and addresses practical fiscal, legal, political and institutional challenges that must be addressed if the Recommendation's goals are to be successfully implemented.
Electronic delivery systems for social cash transfer programmes offer advantages to programme implementers and benefit recipients in terms of enhanced cost efficiency and flexibility. The rapid penetration of cell phone infrastructure, combined with a growing interest from banks to extend financial services, is likely to make the electronic delivery of cash transfers an increasingly viable option. Taking into account the broader benefits for cash transfer recipients arising from improved access to financial services infrastructure, this article elaborates recent evidence and experiences from Kenya, Malawi, Namibia and Swaziland. The article concludes with an assessment of the opportunities and challenges for scaling‐up electronic delivery systems.
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the vulnerability of those who are inadequately covered by social protection in more and less developed countries alike, and has exacerbated the fragility of a social contract that was already under strain in many countries. A weak social contract in the context of an exceptional crisis poses a very real risk to social cohesion. Nevertheless, many States have reasserted themselves as the guarantor of rights by protecting public health and incomes. By sustaining these measures, economic recovery will be supported which will help minimize risks that may weaken social cohesion. However, this is a fast-moving, inherently unstable and protracted crisis. Social protection stands at a critical juncture. Decisive policy action will be required to strengthen social protection systems, including floors, as one of the cornerstones of a reinvigorated social contract.