This month's newsletter is produced in collaboration with the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) and partners’ online knowledge sharing platform, Social Protection and Human Rights.You can follow the platform’s activities on socialprotection.org by clicking on “My activities” in their member profile.
The call to explore the linkages between human rights and social protection has emerged out of a demand for interdisciplinary support as well as tools to help operationalise a rights-based approach to social protection. Both human rights and social protection have emerged as key elements in discussions on poverty reduction and the Agenda for Sustainable Development. Furthermore, major UN processes and documents highlight the important role of social protection in poverty reduction. Development actors and human rights advocates generally affirm that there are synergies between these two agendas. However, there is a lack of systematic discussion on the human rights implications and outcomes of social protection programmes. This newsletter therefore features content addressing the national-, regional- and global-level commitments as well as gaps in mainstreaming human rights in the social protection agenda.
Over this past month, socialprotection.org has reached over 1700 publications and 1300 members! We thank our members, from over 100 countries, affiliated to more than 100 institutions, for their support.
Save the Date
28 July
10–11:00 (UTC-3) Fiscal space for Social Protection Organised by the IPC-IG and HelpAge, commencing the Financing Social Protection Webinar Series.
Check out these three UNRISD perspectives on linking social protection with human rights:
Policy Perspective: Linking Social Protection and Human Rights grants insight into how governments fulfil their obligation to provide social protection and respect the rights of all. This publication describes the experience of developing and implementing policies that safeguard lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people’s right to social protection.
Regional Perspective: Linking Social Protection and Human Rights addresses the importance of shifting the focus to people as rights-holders rather than beneficiaries; the role of legal frameworks in creating comprehensive social protection systems, and the challenges and opportunities associated with achieving these goals.
Activist Perspective: Linking Social Protection and Human Rights explores how a rights-based approach supports civil society organisations in their advocacy for universal access to social protection. The video showcases the role of a human rights framework in India in achieving social protection for all, and the challenges and opportunities in meeting this goal.
INCLUDE launches Question of the Week: Each week, the INCLUDE secretariat will select a recent policy question on inclusive development and feature it on its Knowledge Forum. This forum serves as an arena for lively debate between policymakers, researchers, practitioners and other stakeholders. Join the discussion around the first Question of the Week: ‘To what extent are cash transfers effective in promoting women’s employment in Africa?’
socialprotection.org will feature as one of the partners of the Asia-Pacific Social Protection week(APSP 2016), organised by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), taking place from 1-5 August, in Manila, Philippines. The APSP 2016 will broach recent issues affecting social protection in developing economies and showcase successful stories from countries with advanced social protection systems.
The World Social Forum 2016 will take place in Canada on 9-14 August, for another year of the world's largest gathering of civil society to find solutions to the problems of our time based on social and environmental justice, social economy, participative democracy and the acknowledgement of equal dignity for all. This year's WSF is dedicated to the theme of Human and Social Rights, Dignity and the Fight against Inequalities.
On 28 July at 10–11:00 (Brasilia, UTC-3), the IPC-IG and HelpAge will present the webinar, Fiscal space for Social Protection, commencing the Financing Social Protection Webinar Series. It will address the sustainable expansion of social protection as well as the need for more evidence-based research and knowledge sharing opportunities in the area of financing social protection.
Thank you to the 143 attendees who tuned in for The Bolsa Familia Program:
Access to and Dissemination of Information webinar, organised by the Brazil Learning Initiative for a World without Poverty (WWP). The second webinar of the Brazilian Experience of Social Protection Programmes Series will be dedicated to Tools for Intersectoral Coordination, set to take place soon!
112 attendees joined us for the Social protection and the empowerment of rural women in Africa, organised by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth (IPC-IG) and supported by the UK Department for International Development (DFID). To stay informed about upcoming webinars from the Gender and Social Protection Webinar Series, we invite you to join the Gender-Sensitive Social Protection Online Community.
Watch this UNRISD video, produced in collaboration with UN Women and the OHCHR, Making Social Policy Work for Women. It features human rights and policy specialists at a research-advocacy-policy panel for the workshop, Substantive Equality for Women: Connecting Human Rights and Public Policy. The workshop connected the normative content of human rights to policy design and implementation.
This Briefing Kit from the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), Domestic Workers Count Too: Implementing Protections for Domestic Workers, is informed by the experience of domestic workers from around the world and their support groups. It outlines the normative framework to promote and protect the rights of domestic workers and demonstrates how this can be operationalised.
Explore the UNRISD Legal Depository for a collection of resources related to the right to social protection. The learning tool provides a legal framework for understanding, implementing, and monitoring social security, including legal instruments and cases.
Have a look at our News section, where you can find up-to-date information on social protection programmes from around the world. Read, Op-Ed: An African identity we all aspire to, from the Daily Maverick. It puts forth how a culture of people-to-people solidarity has the potential to safeguard human rights while protecting and promoting the values of an open and democratic society.
We are pleased to announce that the second session of the Ambassador Programme has commenced! This month’s featured Ambassador is Olivia Dufour (Translation Consultant). She majored in Government and Human Rights (Connecticut College), and now works with international human rights organisations. Follow her content by clicking on “My activities” in her member profile.
Share your social protection related content with a network of over 1000 experts on socialprotection.org. This includes publications, news and events.
