The International Labour Organization (ILO) has released its World Social Protection Report 2024-26, which provides a global overview of progress made worldwide in extending social protection since 2015, with a focus on the climate crisis and the need for climate action.
Some of the key points from the report include:
- For the first time, more than half of the world’s population is covered by at least one social protection benefit, up from 42.8 per cent in 2015
- However, 3.8 billion people are still entirely unprotected.
- If progress were to continue at this rate at the global level, it would take until 2073 for everyone to be covered by at least one social protection benefit.
- In the 20 countries most vulnerable to the climate crisis, just 8.7 per cent of the population is covered by some form of social protection, leaving 364 million people unprotected.
- In the 50 most climate-vulnerable countries, 75 per cent of the population (2.1 billion people) are lacking protection.
- The annual financing gap in the 20 most vulnerable countries equates to US$200.1 billion (equivalent to 69.1 per cent of their GDP).
- In the 50 most vulnerable, it is US$644 billion (equivalent to 10.5 per cent of their GDP).
- Low-income countries would need to invest an additional US$308.5 billion per year, equivalent to 52.3 per cent of their GDP. The report says this is unfeasible in the short term without international support.
- Social protection makes an important contribution to both climate change adaptation and mitigation.
- Social protection is an enabler of climate action and a catalyst for a just transition and greater social justice.
- Decisive policy action is required to strengthen social protection systems and adapt them to new realities, especially in the countries and territories most vulnerable to climate change, where coverage is the lowest.
- The capacity of social protection systems to contribute to a just transition is held back by persistent gaps in social protection coverage, adequacy and financing.
- Social justice must inform climate action and a just transition, with human rights at the heart of the process.
Read the full World Social Protection report here.