The components of the SPF or guarantees are defined in accordance with national social protection systems and circumstances, to give flexibility in establishing an SPF. The four guarantees set minimum performance or outcome standards with respect to the access, scope, and level of income security and health care, rather than prescribing a specific architecture of social protection systems, programmes, and benefits. While not all countries can establish all the SPF guarantees immediately, the SPF provides a framework for progressively implementing a holistic social protection system with linkages between the different guarantees.

The usefulness of the SPF approach in combating poverty has been increasingly recognized at the international level, especially since the onset of the global financial crisis of 2007-08. In 2009, the High Level Committee on Programmes of the UN Chief Executives Board adopted the Social Protection Floor Initiative (SPF-I) as one of several joint initiatives to combat and accelerate recovery from the global economic crisis. The SPF has also been highlighted by the Group of 20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors (G-20), and incorporated as a central pillar of the post-2015 UN development agenda for inclusive development.

Building on this foundation, the International Labour Conference adopted the Recommendation concerning national floors of social protection (Social Protection Floors Recommendation, 2012 (No. 202)) at its 101st Session in 2012. Recommendation No. 202 reaffirms the role of social security as a human right and as a social and economic necessity, and provides guidance to countries in building SPFs within progressively comprehensive social security systems.

While the Asia and the Pacific region has made considerable economic progress in the last two decades and has lifted millions out of poverty, not all have benefitted from these gains. Millions of people are still poor, deprived of basic rights, and vulnerable to increased risks from economic crises and climate change. The threat that human development gains made in the past decade may fail to stick and begin to reverse, has helped place social protection high on the policy agenda in the region. At their 67th Session in May 2011, Member States of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN ESCAP) passed a resolution on strengthening social protection systems in Asia and the Pacific. At the 15th Asia and the Pacific Regional Meeting (APRM) held in December 2011 in Kyoto, tripartite stakeholders determined that building effective social protection floors, in line with national circumstances was one of the key national policy priorities for the Asia and the Pacific Decent Work Decade. The recent adoption of the Declaration on strengthening social protection by ASEAN Member States confirms the growing regional importance of social protection.

In order to identify understand what elements of national SPFs are in place and where holes in the system exist, the ILO collaborated with governments, social partners, civil society, academicians, and UN agencies of the ASEAN region in 2011-13 to conduct social protection assessment based national dialogue exercises in Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Viet Nam.

The ABND is based on national social dialogue with stakeholders in the social protection system of a country. This allows the information to be captured and represented from various perspectives and enables progressive consensus building on key ideas. This also contributes to the holistic design of a national SPF that aligns with the visions of different stakeholders. Together with the RAP, the ABND acknowledges that policy recommendations must be affordable, while providing flexibility for schemes to be scaled up as more fiscal space becomes available.

The ABND approach adheres to the four SPF guarantees, as set out in ILO's Recommendation No. 202. The methodology for conducting ABND exercises was developed by the ILO in East, South-East Asia and the Pacific and practically tested in Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Viet Nam. It was then standardized through the development of the Social protection assessment based national dialogue: A good practices guide. A preliminary version of the guide has been tested at workshops at the national and regional levels, and used for starting or planning ABND exercises in Lao People's Democratic Republic, Mongolia, Myanmar, Philippines, the Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu. The ILO continues to promote the ABND approach through technical and policy guidance to stakeholders involved in similar activities, and hands-on training workshops.

The contents of the guide were tested at a training workshop on "Social Protection: Assessment, Costing and Beyond" in Thailand in October 2012 and in consequent regional and national workshops. The subsequent modules contain videos, photos and group activities from the workshop, to illustrate the contents of the guide.

The intended audience of the guide includes all practitioners involved in conducting the social protection ABND exercise:

• decision-makers and staff from various ministries in charge of social protection policies, planning agencies, social security institutions, and national statistical offices;
• staff from research institutes, universities, and training institutes;
• workers and employers representatives and civil society organizations; and
• colleagues from UN agencies involved in the SPF Initiative.