Social Protection Floor advisory group

 

The Social Protection Floor is a global social policy approach promoting integrated strategies for providing access to essential social services and income security for all.

Recognizing the importance of ensuring social protection for all, the United Nations System Chief Executives Board for Coordination (UNCEB) adopted, in April 2009, the Social Protection Floor initiative, as one of the nine UN joint initiatives to cope with the effects of the economic crisis. This initiative is co-led by the International Labour Office and the World Health Organization and involves a group of 17 collaborating agencies, including United Nations agencies and international financial institutions.

The Social Protection Floor approach promotes access to essential social security transfers and social services in the areas of health, water and sanitation, education, food, housing, life and asset-savings information. It emphasizes the need to implement comprehensive, coherent and coordinated social protection and employment policies to guarantee services and social transfers across the life cycle, paying particular attention to the vulnerable groups.

It is a core part of the Global Jobs Pact and combines income security for the elderly, persons with disabilities and child benefits with public employment guarantee schemes for the unemployed and working poor. If functions as a tool to protect and empower the vulnerable population to work out of the poverty and find decent jobs.

Beyond the crisis, the social protection floor has gained widespread acceptance as pivotal component of the sustainable and resilient growth strategy, as tool to accelerate the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals and promote Social Justice.

The Social Protection Floor Advisory Group has been created to enhance global advocacy activities and to further elaborate the conceptual policy aspects of the social protection floor approach.

Social Protection Floor Advisory are:

Mr. Aurelio Fernández Lopes, Chair of the European Union Social Protection Committee (since 2007); Ms. Eveline Herfkens, Founder of the MDGs campaign, Executive Coordinator for the MDGs Campaign (2002-2008), Minister of Development Cooperation of the Netherlands (1998-2002); Mr. Kemal Dervis, Vice-Chair of the Brookings Institution (since 2009), Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (2005-2009) and Minister for Economic Affairs of Turkey (2001-2002); Ms. Margaret Wilson, Professor of Law and Public Policy, University of Waikato (New Zealand), Member and spokesperson of the New Zealand House of Representatives (2005-2008), Minister of Labour (1999-2005); Mr. Martin Hirsch, former High Commissioner for Active Solidarities against Poverty and for Young People of France (since 2007), former head of Emmaüs; Ms. Sudha Pillai, Secretary of the Planning Commission of India (since 2007),former Secretary of Labour and Employment, and Mr. Ebrahim Patel, Minister of Economic Development of South Africa, former spokesperson of the Workers Group in the Governing Body of the ILO.

For more information, visit the SPF Advisory Group Website