Dear colleagues,

Are we seeing the end of the global economic crisis? Or has it transformed into a global jobs crisis? What are the (distributional) implications for countries and people? And what does all of that mean in the context of the construction of a post-2015 development agenda?
These are some of the major questions behind global social policy discussions illustrated in the latest Global Social Policy (GSP) Digest that has been compiled by Amy Barnes and the Scharr global health team (University of Sheffield), James Canonge (Colombia University), Alexandra Kaasch (University of Bremen), Branka Marijan (Wilfrid Laurier University), Sony Pellisery (National Law School of India University, Bangalore), and Antoni Verger (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona).

Covering the period December 2013 to early April 2014, GSP Digest 14.2 summarises global social policy and governance in the fields of global social redistribution, regulation and rights; health, social protection, education, food and habitat land housing.

The GSP Digest is available at http://www.gsp-observatory.org/h/gsp_digest_83_en.php
Please feel free to distribute among interested colleagues, and to let me have any information that you would like to see included at the GSP Observatory Website (www.gsp-observatory.org) or in the next GSP Digest(s).

Best wishes,
Alexandra Kaasch
Editor, Global Social Policy Digest and Global Social Policy Observatory

Dear colleagues 

Thomas Piketty’s new book, Capital in the 21st Century, has done a remarkable job of focusing public attention on the growth of inequality in the last three decades and the risk that it will grow further in the decades ahead. Piketty’s basic point on this issue is almost too simple for economists to understand: if the rate of return on wealth (r) is greater than the rate of growth (g), then wealth is likely to become ever more concentrated.

This raises the obvious question of what can be done to offset this tendency towards rising inequality? Piketty’s answer is that we need a global wealth tax (GWT) to redistribute from the rich to everyone else. That is a reasonable solution if we’re just working out the arithmetic in this story, but don’t expect many politicians to be running on the GWT platform any time soon.

If we want to counter the rise in inequality that we have seen in recent decades we are going to have to find other mechanisms for reversing this upward redistribution. Specifically, we will have to look to ways to reduce the rents earned by the wealthy. These rents stem from government interventions in the economy that have the effect of redistributing income upward. In Piketty’s terminology cutting back these rents means reducing r, the rate of return on wealth.

Fortunately, we have a full bag of policy tools to accomplish precisely this task. The best place to start is the financial industry, primarily since this sector is so obviously a ward of the state and in many ways a drain on the productive economy.

A new I.M.F. analysis found the value of the implicit government insurance provided to too big to fail banks was $50 billion a year in the United States and $300 billion a year in the euro zone. The euro zone figure is more than 20 percent of after-tax corporate profits in the area. Much of this subsidy ends up as corporate profits or income to top banking executives.

In addition to this subsidy we also have the fact that finance is hugely under-taxed, a view shared by the I.M.F. It recommends a modest value-added tax of 0.2 percent of GDP (@$35 billion a year). We could also do a more robust financial transactions tax like Japan had in place in its boom years which raised more than 1.0 percent of GDP ($170 billion a year).

In this vein, serious progressives should be trying to stop plans to privatize Fannie and Freddie and replace them with a government subsidized private system. Undoubtedly we will see many Washington types praising Piketty as they watch Congress pass this giant new handout to the one percent.

The pharmaceutical industry also benefits from enormous rents through government granted patent monopolies. We spend more than $380 billion (2.2 percent of GDP) a year on drugs. We would spend 10-20 percent of this amount in a free market. We would not only have cheaper drugs, but likely better medicine if we funded research upfront instead of through patent monopolies since it would eliminate incentives to lie about research findings and conceal them from other researchers.

There are also substantial rents resulting from monopoly power in major sectors like telecommunications and air travel. We also give away public resources in areas like broadcast frequencies and airport landing slots. And we don’t charge the fossil fuel industry for destroying the environment. A carbon tax that roughly compensated for the damages could raise between $80-$170 billion a year (0.5-1.0 percent of GDP).

This short list gives us plenty of places where we could pursue policies that would lower profits to the benefit of the vast majority of the population. And, these are all ways in which a lower return to capital should be associated with increased economic efficiency. This means that, unlike pure redistributionist measures like taxing the rich, we would have a larger pie that would even allow for some buying off of the losers.

These are the sorts of measures that economists usually try to seek out when the pain is inflicted on ordinary workers. Economists are big fans of trade agreements that arguably boost growth but lead to a loss of jobs and wages for manufacturing workers. For some reason economists don’t have the same interest in economic efficiency when the losers are the rich, but that is no reason the rest of us should not use good economic reasoning in designing an agenda.

In addition to the rent reducing measures listed above, there are redistributionist measures that we should support, such as higher minimum wages, mandated sick days and family leave, and more balanced labor laws that again allow workers the right to organize. Such measures should help to raise wages at the expense of a lower rate of return to wealth.

If this post-Piketty agenda sounds a great deal like the pre-Piketty agenda, it’s because the book probably did not change the way most progressives think about the world. The basic story is that income and wealth are being redistributed upward.

Piketty has produced an enormous amount of data to support what we already pretty much knew. This is very helpful. However the real question is how are we going to reverse this upward redistribution. For better or worse, Piketty pretty much leaves us back with our usual bag of tricks. We just might feel a greater urgency to use them.

See the full article "Economic Policy in a Post-Piketty World" 

Dean Baker ([email protected])

Co-Director

Center for Economic and Policy Research 1611 Connecticut Ave., NW

Washington, DC 20009

202-293-5380 (ext 114)

202-332-5218 (H)

www.cepr.net

Dear colleagues

The Scientific Committee of Progressive Economy chaired by Joe Stiglitz and Jean Paul Fitoussi, and composed by a group of academics, which I am honored to be part of,  has brought out a Call for Change for Europe.

Please see here, the Call in different languages
http://www.progressiveeconomy.eu/content/call-change

In summary, it argues that the crisis that hit our society has revealed the weaknesses of the European political architecture. It has also given rise to some of the most conservative and ineffective policy responses in decades. Now, just a month away from the European elections, a group of academics, members of the Scientific Board of Progressive Economy, have come forward with a Call for Change setting a new approach in favour of a more egalitarian, prosperous and stable European society.

Best,

Professor Stephany Griffith-Jones
Financial Markets Director
Initiative for Policy Dialogue
Columbia University

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century is a six hundred and eighty-five page tome that definitively characterizes the empirical pattern of income and wealth inequality in capitalist economies over the past two hundred and fifty years, and especially over the last one hundred. It also documents the grotesque rise of inequality over the past forty years and ends with a call for restoration of high marginal income tax rates and a global wealth tax.

His book has tapped a nerve and become a phenomenon. In laying a solid blow against inequality, Piketty has also become an accidental controversialist. That is because his book has potential to unintentionally trigger debate over so-called “free market” capitalism. The big question is: will that happen? (Read more here: http://www.thomaspalley.com/?p=422#more-422)

Thomas Palley
Senior Economic Policy Adviser, AFL-CIO and
Research Associate, Economic Policy Institute
Tel: (202)-667-5518
e-mail: [email protected]
www.thomaspalley.com

Dear friends,

Increase salaries, strengthen the unions and investors will come and the economy will grow. That is the Uruguayan formula. And it works! Even "The Economist" named it "Country of the Year".

I think you will like watching this video featuring Uruguayan ministers of Interior, Labour and Social Development in candid dialogue with international civil society representatives https://vimeo.com/90177384#at=0

To see the subtitles press the cc button at the lower right corner of the video screen.

More in our website Social Watch http://www.socialwatch.org/

Best,

Roberto Bissio
Social Watch secretariat

Dear colleagues,

International food prices have fallen since 2008, when agricultural commodity prices doubled, pushing millions around the world from bare subsistence to hunger and raising the number of food insecure people to nearly one billion.

Is the crisis over, then? Far from it, according to Olivier De Schutter, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. As he told the UN Human Rights Council earlier in March, global policymakers have yet to address the structural causes of the crisis. In particular, they have failed to recognize that industrial agriculture is not the ultimate solution to global hunger — and that it is, instead, part of the problem.

In part, De Schutter drew his conclusions from his official mission to Malawi last year. As I toured the country last month, it was easy to see what he saw: the promise and allure of hybrid seeds and synthetic fertilizer, as well as their limits.

Unfortunately, most global policy responses to the 2008 food crisis have strayed little from business as usual. They have been too influenced by business — particularly multinational agribusiness — which profits from a food system that is over-reliant on fossil fuel-based agricultural inputs.

To his credit, during his tenure, De Schutter has been willing to ruffle some corporate feathers while arguing for greater investment in small-scale farmers who produce food sustainably.

In his final report as Special Rapporteur, De Schutter calls for a 21st century approach that replaces last century’s focus on increasing yields with high inputs of improved seed, synthetic fertilizer, and other technologies with one that stresses equity, resilience, and sustainability.

Promising alternatives: In 2009, international donors launched the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP), which pools international donor contributions for agricultural development. Recipient countries and civil-society representatives help set project priorities. One of the top priorities they’ve set is supporting sustainable smallholder food production, particularly by women, who represent the majority of developing country farmers.

So far about $1 billion has come into GAFSP, with strong US support. The Malawian government will soon launch a $46 million GAFSP project to build and rehabilitate irrigation for small-scale food production.

This type of work couldn’t look more different from New Alliance projects. It involves small-scale farmers, the majority women, in producing not export crops but food. The project promotes food crops like rice, beans, and cassava that enhance diversity in both diets and fields. Diverse crops help rebuild natural soil fertility, reducing the need for imported fertilizers.

An explicit aim of the project is to encourage the self-organization of farmers into cooperatives, a prerequisite for achieving both economies of scale and infrastructure management.

When one of the project’s coordinators told me about integrating farmers into “value chains,” he was not talking about those dominated by multinational firms. He was talking about Malawian businesses involved in processing and distributing foods in the domestic market.

This is not business as usual. It is the kind of public investment that can sidestep the development treadmills, ensuring that the impressive efforts by Malawian farmers and their government move the country forward.

And it is a concrete step toward what the De Schutter calls “food democracy” — a model that focuses more on farmers and their governments and less on business.

Read more:

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/global-pulse/malawi-corn-maize-hunger-food-rights?utm_source=GDAE+Subscribers&utm_campaign=ea91a75929-TWBusinessUsual_3_27_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_72d4918ff9-ea91a75929-49697249

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/rights/end-hunger-policy-cant-be-business-usual?utm_source=GDAE+Subscribers&utm_campaign=ea91a75929-TWBusinessUsual_3_27_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_72d4918ff9-ea91a75929-49697249

Timothy A. Wise
Director, Research and Policy Program
Global Development and Environment Institute
Tufts University, Medford, MA 02155
http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/policy_research/WiseOSF.html

Thank you, Jesse.

EURODAD study is very relevant. And to think that the IMF was in crisis a few years ago... I remember when the IMF had to sell off gold reserves to pay staff salaries, and there was talk about downsizing and even closing down the institution. Some called the IMF the “Turkish Fund”, as its main lending was to Turkey, no country wanted IMF loans. I recall proposals suggesting that the IMF should become only a collector of economic data. But then came the global crisis, and the multilateral giant resurrected, and it is now more powerful than ever, imposing again the usual conditionalities that we rejected so strongly in Latin America and elsewhere -- decades earlier.

Your study is so important to bring attention on this. As it appears that we will have another crisis in the South, we need to prepare for an empowered IMF, unreformed. These Spring Meetings so many Southern governments expressed disappointment around the failure of implementing the 2010 IMF Quota Reform agreement, to offer fairer representation in the governance of the IMF.

Abrazos y gracias de nuevo

Carlos Bedoya
LATINDADD
Red Latinoamericana sobre Deuda, Desarrollo y Derechos
http://www.latindadd.org/

In a statement delivered to the 2014 Spring meetings of the IMF and World Bank, ILO DG Guy Ryder points out that if pre-crisis trends in employment growth had continued, 62 million more women and men would have been working in 2013 when global unemployment reached 202 million. Unless growth picks up, the jobs gap will widen to 75 million by 2018.

“The global economy is not yet on a path to strong sustainable and balanced growth,” Ryder said, adding, “Weak global demand is holding back job creation, wages and recovery even further and one consequence is a slowing of the pace of poverty reduction in the developing world.” 

Ryder noted that income inequalities have also widened and the wage share in GDP has fallen in many countries, including the world’s largest economies where wages have lagged behind growth in productivity for over 20 years. 

This trend was masked by unfettered household borrowing before the crisis and temporarily offset by financial market innovations that proved to be unsustainable. These long-term structural problems now weigh heavily on demand and slow down recovery.

See Guy Ryder's statement at the IMF Spring meetings: http://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/who-we-are/ilo-director-general/statements-and-speeches/WCMS_240966/lang--en/index.htm

Interested to know more about the IMF Spring meetings?

Visit official website  http://www.imf.org/external/spring/2014/
Updates from civil society: http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/2014/04/world-bank-imf-spring-meetings-2014/

Dear friends,

At the time of the IMF Spring Meetings, we have published new research on the policy conditions attached to IMF loans. Eurodads research found that:

- The number of policy conditions per loan has risen in recent years, despite IMF efforts to streamline their conditionality. Eurodad counted an average of 19.5 conditions per programme. This is a sharp increase compared to previous Eurodad research, which found an average of 13.7 structural conditions per programme in 2005-07 and 14 per programme in 2003-04.

- The biggest IMF facilities in terms of loan totals have the heaviest conditionality. This rise is driven by exceptionally high numbers of conditions in Cyprus, Greece and Jamaica, which together accounted for 87% of the total value of loans, with an average of 35 structural conditions per programme.

- Almost all the countries were repeat borrowers from the IMF, suggesting that the IMF is propping up governments with unsustainable debt levels, not lending for temporary balance of payments problems its true mandate.

- Widespread and increasing use of controversial conditions in politically sensitive economic policy areas, particularly tax and spending, including increases in VAT and other taxes, freezes or reductions in public sector wages, and cutbacks in welfare programmes including pensions. Use of these types of conditions tends to be lower in low-income countries, but is very high in some of the largest programmes. Other sensitive topics include requirements to reduce trade union rights, restructure and privatise public enterprises, and reduce minimum wage levels

To read the full report, click: http://eurodad.org/files/pdf/533bd19646b20.pdf.

Best regards.

Jesse Griffiths
Director EURODAD
European Network on Debt and Development
Brussels, Belgium
www.eurodad.org

Dear colleagues,

Of all the issues currently being negotiated on the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement, none are more important than the ability of patients to get life-saving medicines at affordable prices, which many fear may be a victim of the agreement.

If you or some family members or friends suffer from cancer, hepatitis, AIDs, asthma or other serious ailments, its worth your while to follow the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) negotiations, now going on in Singapore.

Its really a matter of life and death. For the TPPA can cut off the potential supply of cheaper generic medicines that can save lives, especially when the original branded products are priced so sky-high that very few can afford them.

The fight for cheaper medicines has moved to cancer and other deadly diseases, when once the controversy was over AIDS medicines.

Recently, a cancer specialist in New Zealand (one of the TPPA counties) warned that the TPPA would prolong the high cost of treating breast cancer because of new rules to protect biotechnology-based cancer drugs from competition from generics. And this will affect the lives of cancer patients.

Some cancer medicines can cost a patient over US$100,000 for a years treatment, way above what an ordinary family can afford. But generic versions could be produced for a fraction, making it possible for patients to hope for a cure and a reprieve from death.

In India, local companies are leading the fight to make medicines more affordable to thousands of patients suffering from breast, kidney, liver and gastro-intestinal cancer and chronic leukaemia.

For example, an Indian company produced a generic drug for kidney and liver cancer 30 times cheaper than the branded product (US$140 versus US$4,580 for a months treatment) after it was given a compulsory license.

India has a patent law that disallows patents for a newer form of drugs or known substances unless it improves the medicines efficacy or effectiveness. Under WTO rules, countries are free to set their own standards for novelty, or whether a product is novel enough to be eligible for a patent.

Also, in many countries, including Malaysia, the patent law allows for companies to obtain compulsory licenses to import or make generic versions of original medicines. Governments grant such licenses if the branded products are too expensive and the original companies do not offer attractive terms for a voluntary license to other firms.

Multinational companies have strongly opposed compulsory licenses or the Indian-type laws that allow for patents only for genuine innovations.

This is where the TPPA comes in. Mainly at the insistence of the United States, countries are being asked to accept TRIPS-plus standards of intellectual property, that go beyond the rules of the WTOs agreement on IP.

Especially noteworthy is the US insistence that the TPPA countries agree to give a type of intellectual property known as data exclusivity for 5 years to companies producing original medicines.

This is extended to 8 or 12 years for biologics, or medicines made with biotechnology. Many of the new medicines for treating cancers are biologics.

This will cause immense problems for patients waiting for cheaper medicines because data exclusivity prevents generic companies from relying on the safety and clinical trial data of the original company to get safety clearance for their generic products.

Thus, even if a generic company can prove that its medicine is bio-equivalent to the original medicine that has already passed the safety standard required by the health regulatory authorities, it will not be allowed to sell its medicine unless it comes up with its own safety and clinical trial data.

This goes against current practice of generic medicines and safety standards. But the US is insisting on this in the TPPA.

Few generic companies have the funds or technical ability to do their own clinical trials, and thus generic medicines could well be prevented from being used in TPPA countries for five to 12 years even if the medicines are not patented.

Being deprived of affordable medicines is a matter of life and death, and will cost many lives. That is the most outrightly significant aspect of the TPPA, and this is why so many groups of patients, health organisations and independent medical experts have been outraged and outspoken in their opposition to the TPPA.

George Laking, a cancer specialist in New Zealand, last week raised the alarm that the TPPA could make cancer treatment unaffordable because the data exclusivity clause would lock in the extraordinary high prices of cancer drugs.

In an article he co-authored in the New Zealand Herald, Laking uses the example of Herceptin, an anti-cancer medicine which costs US$100,000 for a years treatment.

Once Herceptin comes off patent, it will become cheaper because generic forms can be made, he says. Also, new medicines that have fewer side effects and greater efficacy are being developed all the time.

That means more people will get through the treatment with less pain and distress. But the cost of new "generic" versions of Herceptin and other such pharmaceuticals looks likely to become a casualty of the TPPA, said Laking.

The new drugs will stay expensive for longer, because access to generic versions will be delayed between eight and 12 years, because of the new data exclusivity rules in the TPPA, he remarked.

These extended monopoly rights go far beyond existing international norms…This would be the first time in the history of such agreements that exclusive long-term monopoly rights over these "biologic" medicines will have been guaranteed….

Each additional year of exclusivity will cost consumers and taxpayers many millions of dollars. This will be profitable for the pharmaceutical industry, but not so good for cancer patients and their families.

According to Jamie Love of Knowledge Ecology International, an expert on drugs and patents, the average cost of 8 biologic cancer drugs registered with the US drug authorities in 2011-2013 is $128,000 (for a years treatment), with the most expensive being over $390,000. At such prices, hardly anyone in developing countries can afford these medicines.

Recently, eight prominent organisations including Medicins Sans Frontieres, Oxfam, Public Citizen, Health Gap and Knowledge Ecology International, issued a strong statement on their deep concern about the public health implications that the TPPAs measures will have for millions of patients in need of access to affordable medicines around the whole Asia-Pacific region.

The new US approach not only preserves the life-threatening and access-restricting proposals that the US has been pushing since 2011, but also fails to provide adequate recognition of the urgent access to medicines needs of patients living in developing countries.

Said the groups: The negotiations must take into account the health needs of all patients living in TPP countries, and the US must halt its efforts to limit countries freedom and flexibilities, otherwise the TPPA will jeopardize many, if not millions, of lives.

Developments in India, which is not a TPPA country, show the patient-friendly policies that can emerge when public health concerns are given priority.

Two generic companies are producing generic versions of the drug Sorafenib which treats kidney and liver cancers. The original product, named nexavar, cost US$4,600 per patient per month. A compulsory license was granted to a local firm to produce a generic version of sorafenib for US$140 a month, or 30 times cheaper.

Another Indian company is producing a generic version of the drug Gleevac, which is used to treat a chronic form of leukaemia as well as gastrointestinal cancer, bringing the cost of treatment down from US$70,000 a year (in the USA) to US$2,500 a year in India.

This was possible because the Indian government denied the original company a patent on Gleevac because it was not judged to be novel enough, and an objection to that decision was rejected by the Indian Supreme Court.

India also rejected a patent application on tenofovir, a drug to treat AIDS, after opposition to its application was filed by several organisations. Cheaper generic versions are now available.

The Indian company Cipla has also produced a generic version of the kidney cancer drug nexavar (although it has been sued for doing so) and a lung cancer drug tarceva.

Another Indian company Biocon has produced a generic version of the breast cancer drug Herceptin. Due to a challenge by the originator company, its production has been stalled.

There is a citizens campaign on affordable trastuzumab (which is the non-proprietary name for the breast cancer drug) to make the drug available cheaply.

Countries that join the TPPA will find it very difficult or impossible to undertake policies and practices similar to Indias, should the US proposals in the intellectual property chapter are accepted.

Moreover, countries like Malaysia that dont produce the generic drugs have the option to import them from India. But if the TPPA imposes data exclusivity rules of the type desired by the US, it would be difficult or impossible to sell them here.

Malaysians would be deprived of the much cheaper generic medicines not only for treating cancer, hepatitis, AIDS, and many other diseases, at least for many years. How many lives would be affected?

Some countries are however opposed to some of the US proposals. According to a briefing on the TPPA by the Malaysian Ministry of Trade and Industry on 20 February, the IP chapter remains the most problematic, with many differing views.

The views and positions that defend public health must prevail, for after all, it is a matter of life and death.

Martin Khor
Executive Director
The South Centre
www.southcentre.int

Dear colleagues,

With reference to your email below, I am reaching out to introduce you FAO’s From Protection to Production project.

The From Protection to Production (PtoP) team is based in the Agricultural Development Economics Division (ESA) of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Our two main areas of work are:

• Impact evaluations of cash transfer programmes, with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa;
• contribution to policy dialogue on the role of social protection in rural development and poverty reduction.

PtoP is a joint effort between the FAO, the UNICEF Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office and the governments of Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

It is also serving as the foundation for FAO’s new policy and work in social protection by raising awareness and providing understanding within the Organization as to what social protection is and how it relates to FAO’s work, to food security and agriculture.

This is the link to the PtoP page where you can find further information and research outputs such as reports, policy and research briefs, interviews, workshops resources, infographic, photo stories, videos: http://www.fao.org/economic/ptop/home/en/

Here you can find video and audio interviews on social protection that may be of interest: http://www.fao.org/economic/ptop/multimedia/en/

Best regards,

Max Terzini on behalf of the PtoP team
Communication & Outreach Specialist
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
Agricultural Development Economics Division
From Protection to Production (PtoP) project
Skype: max.terzini
Twitter: https://twitter.com/maxterzini

Dear Colleagues,

It would be a great opportunity to harness the support of all groups and we would be keen in encouraging our CSO partners to work towards realisation of goals set out.  

Yes, national advocacy is critical and bench marks and standards can be contextualised for effective delivery.  I suppose lot of ground work from the demand side is needed and that's where local non-government organisations and CSOs play critical role.  As a federation, ActionAid would be keen to work with such groups and networks linking local, national and global players in countries where we have presence.

It would be useful to have an information dash-board so that details of national events can be accessed. 

best regards

C. Upendranadh
Program Development Coordinator - Improving Public Services
ActionAid International
www.actionaid.org

Dear friends,

Dear Isabel,

This is a brilliant initiative. It should give us all a chance to actually do what we preach.

In additional to the advocacy work we are already involved in on the global and national levels, the ICSW - and I think I can speak for the Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors - stands ready to mobilise civil society support for social protection floor initiatives in all countries where such initiatives are launched.

Let's get going. Every day we wait, prolongs unnecessary and intolerable misery and suffering ...

Best regards,
Michael Cichon
President International Council on Social Welfare
email: [email protected]g 
www.icsw.org

Dear friends,

The letter by ILO Director General Guy Ryder and UNDG Chair Helen Clark has sent a unified and unmistakable message of support for continuing the work of extending social protection floors across the globe (see:
http://www.social-protection.org/gimi/gess/ShowTheme.do?tid=4025).

Their call to UN agencies is only a first step.

We are going to need everybody’s efforts—not only the UN. The need is enormous: millions suffer hunger, don’t have access to health or to an adequate pension, millions of children cannot study because of their low family income, millions are unable to find a decent job and are denied a life of dignity. Many are also experiencing lower living standards because of austerity measures. Is this the 21st century we want to live in?

We now have an opportunity—and the responsibility—to advance a cause that emerged from a pressing global need.  This important mission needs your contribution.

Many of you, friends in civil society, in academia and elsewhere, possess an invaluable wealth of knowledge and experience that will be indispensable to the initiative’s success.  And we are asking for your continued cooperation and support in maintaining and realizing our shared ambition.

We hope you will continue to play an even bigger role, particularly in the formation of the national social protection floor teams where the UN has called for more engagement with development partners.  Check for the ILO Social Security Specialist covering your country:

http://www.ilo.org/secsoc/about-us/WCMS_176917/lang--en/index.htm 

But there are also ways we can kick-off this renewed collaboration right now:

• Can you become an advocate of social protection floors? Please help us disseminate the message through your networks. Advocacy materials can be found here: http://www.social-protection.org 

• Do you have new evidence or data on social protection programs? Help us grow the knowledge base by sending new publications or other evidence from you or your organization’s work to [email protected]  
• Start costing the social protection floor to make the case in a country.  The costing tool developed by the ILO and UNICEF allows virtually anybody with some quantitative skills to do a basic estimation of old-age pensions, child benefits, disability benefits, orphan benefits, education stipends, birth lump-sum benefits, youth labour market programmes, and employment programmes.

http://www.socialprotectionfloor-gateway.org/24.htm

• Can you translate documents? We are looking for experienced volunteers to translate critical documents into national languages. Send us your cv to [email protected] 
• Can you offer short-term professional services? Apply to our consultants’ roster or become one of our interns. Send us your cv to [email protected] or apply online http://www.social-protection.org 
• Sign the petition!  Support the adoption by every country of a nationally-defined social protection floor.

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/signature-campaign-social-protection-floor/sign.html

Of course, there will be more ways for us to connect moving forward—any suggestions welcome.  But these are a good start.

Let’s work together to create meaningful change in the lives of people everywhere. 

In solidarity,

Isabel Ortiz
Director Social Protection Department
International Labour Organization
4 Route des Morillons
CH-1211 Geneva 22 Switzerland

Dear Colleagues

At FAO, we are working hard to make social protection floors a reality, especially important for overcoming hunger, food insecurity and poverty which is three quarters rural. With the modest and uneven progress on these fronts in recent decades, only social protection can help accelerate progress for the poor and hungry.

Historically, social protection has been weaker outside the formal sector, especially in the countryside. Our work 'from protection to production' will also help ensure much more sustainable hunger and poverty eradication.

We welcome and fully support collaborative work at the country level, as well as at regional and global levels, and look forward to enhanced collaboration as we work together to rise to the Zero Hunger Challenge.

Best regards
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Coordinator for Economic and Social Development
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
FAO (ES-ADG, Room B532), Vialle delle Terme di Caracalla,
00153 Roma, Italy.
Office: [email protected] +39-0657053566
Websites: www.fao.org, www.jomoks.org, www.ideaswebsite.org

Dear Colleagues,

In April 2009, the UN System’s Chief Executives Board for Co-ordination (CEB) launched the Social Protection Floor (SPF) Initiative. Endorsed by UN Member States at the Rio +20 Conference on Sustainable Development, and supported by the G20 and many other fora, the Initiative garnered significant attention and momentum.

UN-wide implementation was given a boost in June 2012 when governments, employers, and workers adopted the path-breaking ILO Recommendation concerning national floors of social protection (No. 202) in 2012 http://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_ILO_CODE:R202

This is to encourage you to maintain momentum behind this important work. The letter attached, from Helen Clark and myself, is addressed to all UN Resident Co-ordinators and UN Country Teams (UNCT) to consider a number of specific steps to advance this work:

1. Building, or where they already exist, strengthening One UN National Social Protection Floor Teams, which should include committed UN organization representatives, relevant national stakeholders, and development partners.

2. Supporting national dialogues, including within governments, on potential options for designing and implementing locally appropriate SPFs, consistent with relevant provisions in the ILO Recommendation, and related initiatives - such as World Health Organization’s work on universal health coverage and existing national development priorities and strategies.

3. Assisting countries to undertake analysis of social protection needs and gaps, optional measures which would close these gaps, tools to monitor progress, and possible sources of financing, with the hope of increasing floors over time.

4. In the context of preparing United Nations Development Assistance Frameworks (UNDAFs), promoting SPFs as instruments to advance inclusive and sustainable development.

5. Working with national statistical offices to strengthen their ability to collect the data needed to analyse social protection needs and existing provisions, disaggregated by factors such as gender, age, and geographical locality. Promote an efficient and co-ordinated UNCT approach to data collection and capacity support.

The need remains enormous: more than 76 per cent of the world’s population continues to live without adequate social protection coverage. Expanding people’s access to social protection is both a way to advance human rights and a sound economic policy. Well-designed social protection systems support household incomes and domestic consumption; build human capital and increase productivity.

In the face of an uncertain global recovery and lower demand, the adoption of a Social Protection Floor is an opportunity to help stabilize economies, generate inclusive growth, and build political stability.

Yours sincerely,

Guy Ryder
Director General
International Labour Organization
4, Route des Morillons
CH-1211 Geneva 22 Switzerland