3.8 billion people in 2023, predominantly in the Global South, lacked any form of social protection
exclusions, including the millions of young women disadvantaged by social norms and inequitably distributed care responsibilities.
BUILDING A FOUNDATION FOR RESILIENT SOCIETIES
The G20 labour and employment minis- ters in July recognised the significance of the NEET challenge. Their declara- tion built on the foundation of the 2015 G20 Antalya Summit goals to reduce NEET rates by 15% by 2025 by adopting the Nelson Mandela Bay Youth Target to reduce 2024 NEET rates by a further 5% by 2030. The declaration emphasises the need to support disadvantaged youth, including young women and youth with disabilities. Recent assessments show the power of increasing the operationalisation of national youth employment strategies, confirming that 53% of G20 policies on education and skills development influ- ence NEET outcomes. The supply- and demand-side policies targeting youth employment should be strengthened, through economic policies that boost job creation, scale up active labour market measures, implement longer- term activation programmes and strengthen labour market institutions to improve job quality. Second, extending social protection constitutes an essential investment in today’s youth and tomorrow’s soci- eties. The returns are both social and economic. The social returns apply across life cycle risks, including illness or work-related injury. As people live, work, grow and age, social protec- tion helps unemployed workers reskill and find new jobs and older persons to retire in dignity. Maternity, parental, child and family benefits assist workers with family responsibilities to reconcile employment and care responsibilities.
Together they build human capabilities and promote health and well-being. Economic returns include enabling enterprises, especially micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, to navigate business cycles and structural trans- formations. For example, during the pandemic, wage subsidies, emergency sick leave benefits and unemployment benefits enabled many businesses to retain workers, preventing mass layoffs. Social protection systems are proven economic and social stabilisers for counter-cyclical macroeconomic effects. SOCIAL PROTECTION IS KEY There is persistent, substantial and asymmetrical underinvestment in social protection. Currently, high-income countries allocate 16.2% of gross domestic product to social protection, excluding health care, and low- and middle-income countries invest only 4.2%. In 2023, 47.6% of the global popula- tion – 3.8 billion people, predominantly in the Global South – lacked any form of social protection. Over 50% of the world’s population lacked essential health services coverage and 2 billion people suffered financial hardship–sometimes catastrophic–to access health care. Given the adverse impacts on human health that include heat stress and vector- and water-borne diseases, uni- versal access without financial hardship has become critical. According to 2024 International Labour Organization calculations, an additional average investment of 3.3%
of GDP in low- and middle-income countries is required to ensure a social protection floor. To take a regional exam- ple, 17.6% of the GDP is required in the African continent. It is urgent to create fiscal space for social investments. The ILO welcomes the G20 Develop- ment Working Group’s call to action ‘to join a transformative agenda to respect, protect, and promote the commit- ment to universal social protection’, and endorsement of the Fourth Financing for Development Conference’s Comprom- iso de Sevilla, which calls for countries to extend social protection coverage by at least two percentage points per year. The target is not aspirational: ILO data show that between 2015 and 2023, 42 countries representing 50% of the global population met that target. To achieve the goal, we must recognise that domestic resource mobilisation is not an exclusively national matter. The G20 DWG calls for an ‘enhancement of global cooperation on social protection financ- ing and technical engagements’. Through joint programmes and part- nerships that foster social protection and guide youth into decent work – from the United Nations Global Accelerator on Jobs and Social Protection for Just Transitions to the Global Initiative on Decent Jobs for Youth and the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty – the ILO stands ready to accompany G20 members to cultivate social justice in the urgent, pragmatic and purposeful manner necessary to earn trust and sow peace.
With growth slowing and families struggling to make ends meet, it is an appalling injustice when money ends up in the hands of criminals – money that could be spent on much-needed global growth and development” // GILBERT HOUNGBO Gilbert Houngbo became director general of the International Labour Organization in 2022. He was president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development from 2017 to 2022. He previously served as deputy director-general of the ILO where he led field operations in more than 100 countries. From 2008 to 2012, he was prime minister of the Republic of Togo. He has also held numerous leader- ship positions at the United Nations Development Programme.
X-TWITTER @GHoungbo ilo.org
73 globalgovernanceproject.org
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