High-Level Political Forum side event: Universal Coverage of Social Protection

FAO supports the Social Protection Floor Initiative and universal access to social protection. I would like to add three points to today’s conversation.

 

First, highlight that around 80 percent of the extreme poor live in rural areas. Most of them do not have social protection and rely mainly on agriculture for their survival. The rural dimension is therefore key to end hunger and poverty and to universalize social protection.

 

Second, I want to note that social protection provides not only a buffer to poor rural families, but also helps strengthen their livelihoods and enables them to invest in innovative and sustainable income generating opportunities.

 

Working with partners, FAO uses and promotes different social protection tools that address social vulnerabilities and protect livelihoods and assets in rural areas. These include school meal, cash transfers, cash-for-work programs, and crop and harvest loss insurance.

 

Third, I want to stress the need to advocate for social protection and ensure comprehensive coverage, as well as the importance to reach rural families. For FAO, this includes:

 

-          Identifying the barriers that those living in rural areas face in accessing adequate social protection and their specific vulnerabilities, to increase access and improve the design and reach of social protection programmes.

-         Building the economic case for expanding social protection: highlighting its capacity to enhance the economic potential of the poor, and to generate economic impacts in the local economy, especially in rural areas.

 

As was mentioned earlier, the myth that social protection is a handout persists. In this regard, FAO and UNICEF published last year a study called from “Evidence to Action: the story of cash transfers and impact evaluation in Sub-Saharan Africa”. The evidence in the report shows.

 

• Social protection influences labor choices, but does not reduce work effort
• Beneficiaries work differently, but not less. And they create more income then they receive
• Finally, there was no evidence of increased fertility or alcohol consumption

 

To end, let me emphasize that the efforts to end hunger and poverty must go hand in hand. And require a combination of actions, ranging from productive support to social protection. Together with productive support, social protection is a necessary investment to transform lives.

 

Thank you for your attention.