This webinar offered simultaneous interpretation to French and Spanish.

The devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the ongoing crises driving up the cost of food and basic necessities for many around the world, highlight the urgent need for all countries to make rapid progress towards achieving universal social protection. 

While human rights and international labour standards clearly recognise that ensuring adequate social protection is a responsibility of national governments, international cooperation plays an important role in supporting countries to realise those responsibilities. This may come in the form of financial support to countries struggling to finance the full required social protection system, as well as technical advice on the design and implementation. International organisations also influence international and national debates on what social protection should look like, and who should pay for it. 

International financial institutions (IFIs), such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) that offer access to financing for cash-strapped governments can be particularly influential. Both have scaled-up their engagement in social protection in recent years: The World Bank is by far the largest external donor of social protection, while the IMF has recently published its first strategy outlining when and how to engage on social spending. 

Civil society organisations, unions, workers’ organisations and some UN agencies have generally been critical of IFIs focus and track-record on social protection, stressing their perceived lack of regard to rights and labour standards, as well as their consistent emphasis on exclusionary safety nets, conditionalities and privatisation. 

Then COVID-19 happened, and it seemed like everything was going to change. During the height of the crisis, the IMF has supported higher expenditure on health care and cash transfer programmes even when it meant higher fiscal deficit and public debt. A few months ago, the IMF published its first gender strategy. The World Bank likewise provided substantive support to the expansion of social protection during the pandemic and its brand-new social protection strategy is explicitly framed around achieving USP. 

In this webinar, representatives from different CSOs, unions and workers’ organisations have shared their perspectives on whether, and if so, how, IFIs have changed their position on social protection in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Based on newly published evidence, we discussed what is new regarding IFI’s engagement on social protection, what counts as progress, and what are areas where IFIs may continue to fall short on realising the right to social protection for all. 

Speakers:

Lena Simet, Senior Researcher on Poverty and Inequality, Human Rights Watch (HRW)
Tavengwa Nhongo, Executive Director, African Platform for Social Protection (APSP)
Daisy Sibun, Social Policy Specialist , Development Pathways
Evelyn Astor, Economic and Social Policy Advisor, International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC)
Florian Juergens-Grant, Project Manager, Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO)
Ghislaine Saizonou Broohm, Coordinator of the Department of Equality and Social, ITUC Africa

Moderator: Rachel Moussié, Director of Programmes, Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing

Resources: 

Can a leopard change its spots? A critical analysis of the World Bank’s ‘progressive universalism’ approach to social protection 

Human Rights Watch: IMF/World Bank: Targeted Safety Net Programs Fall Short on Rights Protection

WIEGO and ITUC Africa: Building Forward Better: Investing in Africa's Workers (also in French and Spanish)

WIEGO: World Bank’s Push for Individual Savings Provides Little Protection for Crisis-hit Workers (also in French and Spanish)

Initiative for Policy Dialogue (IPD), Global Social Justice (GSJ), International Confederation of Trade Unions (ITUC), Public Services International (PSI), ActionAid International, Arab Watch Coalition, Bretton Woods Project, Eurodad, Financial Transparency Coalition, Latindadd, Third World Network (TNW)

ITUC response to the World Bank’s Social Protection and Job Compass 

ITUC response to the IMF’s Framework on Social Spending

Wemos: END AUSTERITY. A Global Report on Budget Cuts and Harmful Social Reforms in 2022-25