Social Protection

Building social protection floors
and comprehensive social security systems

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Thematic areas

Social protection in crisis and post-crisis contexts

Baseline

  • Following the conclusions of the 109th Session of the International Labour Conference in 2021, the ILO will continue and strengthen its support to constituents to build back better and for a human-centered recovery from COVID-19, including through the adaptation of social protection systems to new and emerging challenges in a coordinated and integrated way
  • Although COVID-19 has been a wake-up call for governments on the importance of universal social protection, it also exposed gaps and limitations within existing systems, including lack of anticipation, fragmentation, and limited coverage, as well as operational and capacity weaknesses. 
  • In a world of more frequent changes and greater stresses, the continuity of public action, including social protection, will increasingly depend on its capacity to anticipate and adapt. If previous crises and new and emerging challenges in the world of work have triggered several siloed engagements to adapt social protection systems to evolving contexts, it is necessary to build a comprehensive, integrated approach to social protection across contingencies, vulnerabilities and contexts in most countries.

Standards and Guiding Principles

Approach and Technical Support

Building the adaptive capacity of national social protection systems means strengthening all of their fundamental components – from policy, legal, and financing frameworks to operational arrangements and delivery mechanisms. Similarly, adaptive capacity ought to be made a feature of the entire system to be truly effective, leveraging both contributory and non-contributory schemes to ensure the entirety of the population is within reach of the social protection system and the support it is designed to deliver in times of crisis and recovery.

Another important dimension of adaptive social protection is the coordination of all stakeholders, local, national, and international, involved in the emergency response and recovery– including social protection ministries, national authorities overseeing disaster risk management, UN agencies and NGOs, social partners, and civil society. In particular, in contexts of high volatility, fragility, and need, life-saving emergency cash interventions are often a vital part of the humanitarian response, while joint planning and interventions with actors operating across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus (HDNP) is essential to ensure alignment, where feasible, and maximise the synergies for effective delivery and improved coherence of the support to crisis-affected populations, including during the recovery phase.

Alongside supporting continued improvements to the coverage, adequacy, and comprehensives of national social protection systems, the ILO offers its technical assistance to constituents and other relevant actors for the expansion of adaptive and responsive capacities of social protection systems. Across contexts and contingencies, these are crucial elements for national actors to fulfil their role as duty-bearers, and to effectively realise the universal right to social security for all.

In order for social protection systems to fulfil their role, meet the rise in demand for the relief they offer in crisis and post-crisis contexts and build towards the progressive realization of universal social protection (USP), their support should be structured around the following guiding objectives:

u  Adopt a rights-based, life-cycle approach to social protection in crisis and post-crisis contexts: this is not just a matter of principle – rather, it is a question of supporting the development of national social protection systems that are comprehensive, fair, adequate, equitable, inclusive, reliable and accountable. Protection in the face of increasingly recurring shocks and protracted crises, which intersect with idiosyncratic risks such as disability, sickness and unemployment, is better guaranteed through statutory provisions that look beyond crises towards systematically addressing the entirety of life-cycle risks, including the needs of crisis-affected populations.

u  Build resilience ex-ante to ensure responsiveness ex-post: through the establishment of dedicated provisions in the policy and legal frameworks underpinning schemes and programmes, resilient and flexible delivery systems and consideration of covariate risks in actuarial studies and financing plans. Identifying gaps in coverage and reach, reinforcing operational capacities, improving coordination and increasing the financial space for (re)action ahead of crises are altogether a more cost-effective way of increasing the adaptiveness and responsiveness of systems than merely by scaling up a set of non-integrated programmes.

u  Reach all crisis-affected populations through a diversity of schemes and mechanisms: which means supporting the integrated development of both contributory and non-contributory social protection instruments, as nationally relevant, to ensure that adequate support reaches all crisis affected populations, without having to rely on imperfect assumptions as to who is most in need at any given point.

u  Link social protection interventions to the broader decent work agenda: a coherent, cross-sectoral approach to crisis and post-crisis contexts, one that goes beyond standalone cash transfers, has a better chance at fostering a conducive environment, firstly, for “building back better” and achieving inclusive growth in line with decent work and social justice, and, secondly, for ensuring the financial sustainability of national social protection systems beyond immediate responses.

The ILO supports its constituents in strengthening national social protection systems across all types of crises, including:

u  Socio-political fragility and conflict: contexts of (protracted) conflict and institutional vacuum pose fundamental challenges to the advancement of universal social protection. Aiding the development of national social protection systems, in coordination with humanitarian and emergency response actors, is crucial in delivering support to crisis-affected populations, mending trust between people and institutions, and fostering inclusive recovery and social cohesion in the long run.

u  Climate change and natural disasters: social protection is key to addressing the loss and damage caused by climate change and natural disasters, shielding people from their socio-economic consequences, such as loss of income, employment, livelihoods, and productive assets, preventing them from resorting to negative coping mechanisms as well as providing access to vital healthcare. Overall, social protection instruments, including social insurance, play a fundamental role in promoting adaption and resilience of its recipients to climate change and natural disasters reducing vulnerabilities ex-ante and ensuring income security ex-post. See the dedicated page on climate for more information.

u  Forced displacement: refugees, internally displaced people (IDPs), and other forcible displaced populations have heightened vulnerabilities and face significant obstacles to accessing social protection systems, which is why dedicated efforts need to be made to ensure that (national) schemes and benefits are inclusive of forcibly displaced persons, and that adequate support reaches them in a timely manner. See the dedicated page on displacement for more information.

u  Health crises: social protection has a crucial role to play in responding to pandemics, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and epidemics, meaning both to their direct health consequences, by ensuring access to robust social health protection systems, and their socio-economic impacts.

u  Sudden economic and financial disruption: in these contexts, preparedness is crucial in ensuring adequate resources are pre-allocated to social spending and social protection, in order to enable an inclusive response and recovery that addresses, rather than reproduces, pre-existing vulnerabilities and inequalities. The establishment of statutory schemes, especially of unemployment and income support schemes, with dedicated financing is crucial in this. See the dedicated page for more information on unemployment protection.

Building on its technical expertise and concrete experience of supporting constituents across all contexts, the ILO is a key partner in supporting the continued extension and strengthening of national social protection system, including of their adaptive capabilities, before, during and after crises. The ILO’s technical support includes:

u  Support to constituents in advancing universal social protection in crisis and post-crisis contexts: including through the promotion of the international social security standards and their principles in crisis and post-crisis contexts. This means technical support in embedding the ISSS in social protection crisis responses and measures, in navigating the relationship between the ISSS and humanitarian principles to identify points of convergence and synergy, as well as areas where trade-offs ought to be considered. As the custodian of SDG indicator 1.3.1 on social protection coverage, the ILO supports monitoring, reporting and data-gathering of social protection coverage and adequacy, including in crisis and post-crisis contexts. Finally, the ILO can provide training, learning and capacity development to constituents with regard to ways to achieve USP, including in crisis and post-crisis contexts.

u  Facilitating evidence-informed national and social dialogue for inclusive preparedness, response, and recovery: the ILO supports national and social dialogue processes in social protection policymaking and implementation, including in crisis and post-crisis contexts. An evidence-informed national dialogue for social protection ensures that responses target the needs of crisis-affected populations, as well as increasing ownership of, and trust in, the response, ultimately reinvigorating the social contract, fostering social cohesion and contributing to peace-responsiveness of social protection systems in the long run. The ILO can provide analytical support to crisis-sensitive actuarial valuations and modelling, to improve financial preparedness and resilience of systems, as well as to assessments of the conflict-sensitivity and peace-responsiveness of existing policy and operational arrangements.

u  Reinforcing legal, financial, and operational arrangements for better preparedness and responsiveness: the ILO supports countries to build solid policy frameworks that ensure rights are translated into effective coverage, adequate benefits legally mandated and disbursed in a reliable and timely manner and schemes in place that are sustainable both during and after crisis situations. Such measures include improving delivery mechanisms by adjusting the amount, timing or frequency of benefits provided to meet any additional needs induced by a crisis; and likewise in response to the crisis, lifting obstacles to affiliation so as to facilitate the inclusion of new beneficiaries in national schemes.

u  Promoting coordinated approaches across the HDPN: at the international and national levels, the ILO can play an important role in fostering social protection policy coherence and joint operational efforts around the ultimate goal of universal social protection. The ILO builds and contributes towards coordination mechanisms that bring together humanitarian, development and peace actors, with the objective of increasing synergies of emergency response and social protection system building efforts. These efforts are critical in situations of protracted crisis, where the long-term goal of strengthening state capacities requires harmonized approaches among all stakeholders.

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Nour, Rim
Crisis
04.04.2025