World Social Protection Report 2024–26

Social protection is fundamental for climate change adaptation2 as it tackles the root causes of vulnerability by preventing poverty and social exclusion and reducing inequality. [...] Ambitions to close gaps in the coverage, comprehensiveness and adequacy of social protection systems are stymied by significant underinvestment in social protection. [...] Persistent adequacy gaps inhibit the potential of social protection to prevent and reduce poverty, and enable a dignified life. [...] It is time to up the ante, accelerate progress in social protection and make a just transition. [...] X Universal social protection is a pivotal policy lever to prevent and address the adverse consequences of the climate crisis and enable a just transition. [...] Social protection will be critical for holding societies together with each blow dealt by the climate crisis and each phase of a just transition (UNRISD 2022). [...] Chapter 2 focuses on the role of social protection in addressing the climate crisis and facilitating a just transition, and sets out policy options for accomplishing both. [...] With only six years remaining until 2030, this report argues that universal social protection will have to be at the heart of climate action and a just transition. [...] In loss and damage discourse, there is a tendency to reduce the role of social protection to be merely a delivery channel for emergency support once shocks have struck. [...] To support those commitments, the ILO and the UNHCR have been collaborating on the extension of social health protection to refugees for over a decade.