Aftermath of the global economic
crisis, it has been discovered that over 70 per cent of the world population is without proper social
protections, says United Nations labour agency, the International Labour
Organisation (ILO), reports NaijaAgroNet.
ILO in an executive summary of the
report made available to NaijaAgroNet.urged
governments to scale up investment in child and family benefits, pensions and
other public expenditures.
Sandra Polaski, the Deputy
Director-General of the International Labour Organization (ILO) made this disclosure, saying that the
global community agreed in 1948 that social security and health care for
children, working age people who face unemployment or injury and older persons
are a universal human right.
“And yet in 2014 the
promise of universal social protection remains unfilled for the large majority
of the world’s population,” she lamented.
Equally, NaijaAgroNet gathered that as many
as 122 governments were contracting public expenditures in 2014, of which 82
are developing countries, according to the findings of the World Social Protection
Report 2014/15: Building economic recovery, inclusive development and social justice.
“The case for social
protection is even more compelling in these times of economic uncertainty, low
growth and increased inequality,” Ms. Polaski noted, adding that it is also an
issue that the international community should embrace prominently in the
development agenda following the Millennium Development Goals deadline in 2015.
At the beginning of the
2008-2009 economic crisis, at least 48 high- and middle-income countries put in
place stimulus packages totalling $2.4 trillion that devoted roughly a quarter
to social protection measures.
This support “acted as an
automatic stabilizer that helped the economies to regain balance and protected
the unemployed and vulnerable from economic disaster in the countries where it
was extended,” according to the report.
But from 2010 onwards, many
governments reversed course and embarked prematurely on fiscal consolidation,
despite the urgent need to continue supporting vulnerable populations and stabilizing consumption.
Isaac Oyimah/GEE
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