Background
Social protection in Thailand
Over the years, Thailand has put in place a range of social protection schemes, including a universal coverage scheme for health care introduced in 2002 and a universal social pension. However, Thai citizens still do not yet all effectively benefit from basic adequate social protection, while coverage of the informal sector remains low. In this context, the Royal Thai Government is considering an expansion of social welfare systems and is concentrating its efforts on developing a universal coherent social protection system by 2017. This system should provide lifetime protection to all. The system, in which all stakeholders will be involved (including government, private sector, communities, civil society) is expected to involve four pillars: (i) social services; (ii) social assistance; (iii) social insurance; and (iv) social promotion. The Ministry of Social Development and Human Security (MSDHS) is responsible for coordinating implementation.
Partnership on social protection between the Royal Thai Government (RTG) and the UN
The United Nations in Thailand is currently in the process of preparing its next United Nations Partnership Framework (UNPAF) with the Royal Thai Government for the period 2012-2016. This partnership will define strategic, upstream policy and capacity building contributions of the UN system in Thailand to support government’s policy, notably in the expansion of social protection to reach a just society (a key component of the 11th National Economic and Social Development Plan (NESDP)).
Through a joint partnership on social protection, co-chaired by the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security (MSDHS) and the International Labour Office (ILO), aim to work jointly to implement a floor and higher levels of benefits, building a coherent social protection system, which is sensitive to vulnerabilities and addresses gender inequalities.
Social Protection Floor and Assessment Based National Dialogue
A Social Protection Floor is a set of basic social rights and services that each member of a society should enjoy. It promotes income security through a basic set of guarantees including: (i) all residents have access to a nationally/provincially defined set of affordable essential health care services; (ii) all children enjoy income security through transfers in kind or in cash ensuring access to nutrition, education and care;(iii) all those in active age groups who cannot (or should not, in case of pregnancy) earn a sufficient income enjoy a minimum income security through social transfers in cash or in kind or employment guaranteed schemes ; and (iv) all residents in old age and with disabilities have income security at least at the level of the nationally defined poverty line through pensions for old age and disability or transfers in kind.
The social protection floor framework can be used to describe existing schemes in place for each of the four basic guarantees mentioned above and identify the policy and implementation gaps if any, as well as stakeholders involved.
In July-August 2011, the Assessment Based National Dialogue, defining the dialogue process between the national Government, social partners, civil society organizations, the academia, and the UN country team, was carried out to identify priority areas for government intervention in the field of social protection. This exercise contributed to:
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Inventory social protection schemes and related laws and regulations for each of the four guarantees of the social protection floor. In this exercise, gaps and implementation issues were identified and,
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Formulate recommendations to fill the gaps and overcome implementation.
During this process, a dialogue was facilitated and allowed to identify priority areas for government interventions and possible assistance from the UN. This assessment helps draw recommendations for the further design and implementation of social protection provisions to reach at least the social protection floor for all the population. This assessment should be completed by a rapid costing exercise to estimate the cost of introducing these additional social protection provisions.
The preliminary results were presented during the Consultative Meeting on Social Protection Floor on 10 August, 2011which was attended by more than 70 people from the national Government, social partners, civil society organizations, the academia, and the UN country team.
In November 2011, the assessment was complimented with a preliminary costing exercise which:
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Translated some of the recommendations into concrete social protection provisions that need to be introduced in Thailand or further expanded in order to guarantee at least a comprehensive social protection floor for all the population;
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Estimated the cost of these social protection provisions (one of them being the introduction of a child allowance) and simulated the cost over a ten years period (using projections of the population, economic indicators, etc.). However several scenarios were missing at that time.
Several government agencies and line ministries as well as the academia, representatives of the civil society, of the parliament and of UN agencies were involved in this dialogue.
The Next Step and Objectives
In March 2012, the ILO will organise the Assessment Based National Dialogue Workshop: "Final Results and Recommendations to the Government" to (i) discuss the pre-final draft of the assessment based national dialogue, and notably share the methodology and final results of the costing (including the scenarios that were missing in November on the working age group and the projections over a 10 years period expressed in percentage of Government expenditure and GDP), (ii) confirm the relevance of the proposed Social Protection policy options and (iii) discuss the next steps (e.g., fiscal space analysis to identify relevant budget allocations & tax policies that could fund the extension of social protection). Based on the recommendations of the workshop, the ILO (UN SPF Team), line ministries, and the academia will finalize their respective reports which will be presented to the Government.