This interactive, facilitated course explores the basics of social protection and, in particular, how to view social protection through a sustainable development lens. The course champions the concept of universal social protection and focuses on designing, financing, and implementing comprehensive systems and policies that reduce vulnerabilities throughout all stages of people's lives. 

Objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

1. Establish the need for universal social protection systems for individuals and societies to advance sustainable development and realize the human right to social security;
2. Recognize the value of, and create a culture around, social protection as an investment and lever to achieve sustainable development;
3. Identify global trends, practical tools, and good practices in extending social protection, especially related to building up individual, household, and national socio-economic and crisis resilience;
4. Actively advocate for establishing universal, comprehensive, rights-based, and sustainable social protection systems in their context;
5. Identify the concrete policy steps necessary to design, finance, and implement nationally appropriate social protection systems;
6. Discern social protection approaches and tools to identify gaps in national social protection systems and contribute to fixing them.

Course contents

Week 1: Past, present, future: the history of social protection and the 2030 Agenda (the “why”)

• Definitions and visions on social protection
• History, characteristics, and structure of the 2030 Agenda
• Social protection and the SDGs
• Social protection and the 5Ps
• Lifecycle risks
• History of the welfare system and early social protection
• The human right to social security and the rights-based approach to social protection

Week 2: Forms and instruments of social protection (the “what”)

• International labour standards and social protection regulations
• Types of social protection (e.g., social assistance, social insurance, labour market policies)
• Coverage for all groups along the lifecycle (e.g., children, older persons, people with disabilities)
• Coverage of vulnerable groups (e.g., informal workers, migrants, LGBTIQ+ persons, rural populations)
• The role of data for social protection
• Social protection and gender
• Universal social protection and social protection floors 

Week 3: Designing, financing, and reforming social protection systems (the “how”)

• Designing and reforming social protection systems
• Systems and needs assessments
• Financing and fiscal space
• National social protection strategies
• Operational cycles and information management of social protection schemes

Week 4: Implementation and partnerships for universal and comprehensive social protection systems (the “how”)

• Monitoring and evaluation
• Implementation
• Partnerships and stakeholders
• Initiating a culture of universal social protection
• Inter linkages and systems thinking in social protection
• Creating a participatory approach to building universal social protection systems

Week 5: Looking ahead: practical perspectives, global trends, and debates in social protection

• Identifying global trends like migration, environmental degradation and climate change, digitization, disasters etc.
• Shock responsive social protection and COVID-19  
• Universal basic income

Target audience

Participants will represent various backgrounds and will have different levels of experience in social protection. Their work will span civil society, academia, the private sector, mass media, political parties, governments, NGOs, international organizations, donors, social workers, educators, volunteers, and influencers. We are looking for motivated people who do not necessarily have prior knowledge about social protection but can demonstrate they will use the knowledge gained to benefit others. 

Cost of participation

The course is free of charge.

Duration: 6 weeks