The Social Protection Platform

The Social Protection Platform replaces the former Global Extension of Social Security (GESS) Platform. It is the International Labour Office's global knowledge sharing tool to extend social protection. The platform aims to facilitate the exchange of information and ideas, capture and document experiences, identify knowledge gaps and facilitate the creation of knowledge through the promotion of innovation. To achieve this goal, the Social Protection Platform relies on the contributions of its users and the dialogue and exchanges between them.

The platform, developed and run by the ILO Social Protection Department, provides an international interdisciplinary knowledge sharing environment and technical assistance services for the extension of social security.

Why the Social Protection Platform?

Social security is a basic human right enshrined in many international legal documents such as the 1944 ILO Declaration of Philadelphia or the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Beyond the normative argument of providing a life in dignity for all members of society, there is ample evidence of the beneficial socio-economic impacts of social protection programmes.

Social protection contributes to preventing social unrest, fosters economic growth, prevents and alleviates poverty and helps countries achieve sustainable development models. And yet, extending social security coverage to the entire world population represents a considerable challenge.

Who is the Social Protection Platform for?

The Social Protection Platform provides assistance, information and collaborative tools to all those working towards universal social protection coverage. It fosters collaboration between all the actors involved in the extension of social security: policy makers, international organizations, development banks, technical teams from ministries of employment, health, social protection or finance, social partners, donors, as well as technical cooperation experts, social security fund managers, mutual health organization staff, cooperatives, NGOs and other civil society organizations, trainers, researchers, etc.

How is the platform structured?

In order to facilitate easy access to relevant information and services for users coming from different backgrounds and searching for different types of information, the content on social security is organized by different entry points. Users can:

Each of these pages summarizes key data and provides links to news, additional resources, other information available on the Internet, statistics, national legislation, experts in the field, and training opportunities.

How can users get involved?

The platform is designed to be interactive and user-driven. In addition to providing information, it offers the opportunity of:

  • posting news and comments;
  • suggesting further resources;
  • engaging in online discussions: Recovery with a Human Face; Social Protection Community of Practice;
  • adding terms or definitions to the glossary;
  • creating online workspaces to collaborate with other users on a project, be it technical cooperation, research, designing training sessions or training material, etc.

The Social Protection Platform is also a way for professionals and experts to communicate directly about their work and get in touch with other specialists and people who work in their field via the online forum, or by creating their own online workspaces.

For more information, please contact us at: socpro@ilo.org

Social Protection Department
International Labour Office
4, route des Morillons
CH-1211 Geneva 22
Switzerland