This year marks the midpoint to 2030. The recently released report of the Secretary General on Progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals: towards a rescue plan for people and planet found, however, that only about 12 per cent of the SDG targets are on track, while 30 per cent have either seen no movement or even regressed below the 2015 baseline. If current trends continue, 575 million people will still be living in extreme poverty in 2030 and only one third of countries will meet the target to halve national poverty levels. Forcibly displaced children are among those left furthest behind. In 2022, global displacement numbers surpassed the 100 million mark for the first time. While children account for 30 per cent of the world’s population, at 40 per cent, they are overrepresented among all forcibly displaced. Children are already twice as likely as adults to live in extreme poverty,  but when coupled with displacement, this situation takes on a significantly graver magnitude. Displaced children and their families often also have limited means of dealing with socio-economic shocks or accessing protection from violence.

 

Social protection is a proven policy and programme measure to eradicate poverty and vulnerability, and accordingly forms the SDG target 1.3.¹ in the past few years, social protection has also emerged as a critical mechanism to help those impacted by crises to prepare for, cope with and recover from shocks while contributing to their resilience building. It is increasingly seen as critical to strengthening the humanitarian-development-peace nexus with a strong momentum in support of inclusive social protection systems to progress towards universal coverage and comprehensiveness of support. However, displaced children and their families remain excluded from many national social protection systems.

 

At the same time, many countries have made important progress towards realising social protection benefits, by investing in the development of systems to support displaced and host communities, often in collaboration with international partners. These processes are accelerated through several initiatives:

The purpose of this dialogue was to discuss how these initiatives can strengthen inclusive social protection systems for forcibly displaced and host communities, including how they can be leveraged alongside the Global Accelerator on Jobs and Social Protection for Just Transitions to benefit displaced populations. It builds on previous events, including the 2022 World Bank Fragility Forum session on ‘Delivering social protection in FCV contexts – lessons from the frontline’, the 2023 Roundtable ‘Leaving No One Behind: Social Protection solutions to support and protect children in displacement settings’, and Global Forum on Adaptive Social Protection session on The role of social protection in supporting forcibly displaced populations in times of crisis.