Guidance Note on Options to Link Social Protection to Sustainable Employment

This Guidance Note extends the analysis in our 2014 report on Social Protection and Sustainable Employment. It provides practical advice to policy makers on how to link beneficiaries of social protection more directly to sustainable productive employment, drawing on lessons from Asia, Latin America and Africa.

It discusses the indirect ways in which social protection supports access to income earning opportunities, but focuses on the additional measures governments can take to proactively link social protection beneficiaries to sustainable employment. The Guidance Note discusses six key areas: knowing the beneficiaries; developing soft skills; nurturing enterprise skills; building vocational skills; linking to markets; and linking to services. For each one, and for the important aspect of bringing them all together, it presents examples of good practice — many drawn from experience in Latin America, which has recently been leading the drive towards productive inclusion of social protection beneficiaries.