Sustainable Development Goal #1 is to end poverty in all its forms everywhere.
Within SDG #1 are 7 targets, of which this episode will focus on Target 1.3:
Implement nationally appropriate social protection systems and measures for all, including floors, and by 2030 achieve substantial coverage of the poor and the vulnerable.
To measure target 1.3, there’s one indicator, 1.3.1:
Proportion of population covered by social protection systems, by sex, distinguishing children, unemployed persons, older persons, persons with disabilities, pregnant women, newborns, work-injury victims and the poor and the vulnerable”.
The year 2030 has been set as the deadline for this target, to be met in alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals as a whole.
So, what is meant by ‘social protection’? Basically, these are government-sponsored programs designed to shield the vulnerable from impacts which could affect their position of poverty and wellbeing. This includes mitigating any factors which could prevent someone from participating in the labour market, whether due to experiencing unemployment, being socially excluded because they belong to a marginalised minority, are disabled, afflicted by sickness, or otherwise are in old age.
To promote and protect citizens, interventions are made in the labor market, via social safety net programs, for instance, Medicare and Medicaid in the US, as well as Social Security and unemployment benefits.
Though this model of social protections is common to European countries who pioneered the model, with a European tradition of taxing and transferring larger portions of the country’s economic output to provide for the social safety net, the degree and robustness of social protection varies from country to country.
As the indicator 1.3.1 identifies, the vulnerable are characterised by sex, essentially suggesting societies where women are more vulnerable than male counterparts, and in particular, women in pregnancy, as well as newborns in the first months of life, and children and teens in general. Additionally, this indicator encompasses as vulnerable those experiencing unemployment, disability, injuries or accidents at work, as well as older persons, especially in the wake of COVID-19.
Whilst the aforementioned demographics may be exposed to vulnerabilities that at times require social protection, not all countries have the ability to tax the population, then transfer the revenue from such taxation to the vulnerable. This is very true of the least developed countries. The logic behind this is, if the average citizen lives on barely subsistence, enough to survive hand-to-mouth day-to-day, they do not have a surplus of income beyond survival for the government to tax, and the government has a meagre tax base to collect from and provide services to improve wellbeing with.
In other instances, there may be less of an appetite from the government or electorate to either tax enough to support such transfers, or political obstacles to make such transfers, perhaps due to societal stigmas toward certain vulnerable groups. This could be an example of political wrangling in countries where enough surplus income exists to provide for a potential tax base, but taxpayers have resistance to their tax payments being transferred to others as welfare.
These gaps are exactly what Target 1.3 aims to remedy. As of 2016, the year of commencement of the SDGs, 55% of the global population, approximately 4 billion individuals, were not living with a social safety net below, thus exposed to economic shocks in the market for wage labour which could impact their quality of life.
The ‘floor’ of social protection mentioned in Target 1.3 are human rights which aim to guarantee a minimum of services to provide a threshold of guarantees for all citizens, as set out by a country or international organisation such as the UN, to provide for a lifetime of the essentials: health care, income sufficient to provide for food security, education, housing and other goods and services necessary to an adequate standard of living.
When we look at progress toward Target 1.3, its intersection with COVID-19 has demonstrated many developed countries were able to adapt by tapping in to global capital markets for lending to provide income support accompanying the effects of the lockdowns, yet such income support was less accessible to developing countries with more circumscribed ability to borrow to finance such protections, affecting incomes, jobs and health.
As of 2020, the proportion of the global population with access to a minimum of one social protection payment was 47%, down only 8% since the start of the SDGs in 2016, and with the population total still around 4 billion.
However, from the onset of the pandemic in the early months of 2020 through year-end, among all countries, 1500 social protection efforts were announced, albeit many on a short-term basis in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
