Global Social Floor: a Universal Social Pension

1. Global Social Floor: a Universal Social Pension Silvia Stefanoni Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Programmes HelpAge International

2. Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Art 22: Everyone …… has a right tosocial security Art 25: Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for health and well-being of himself and his family Art 25: …and the right to security in the event of….old age Social security: a right and a public service

3. Poverty reduction in OECD countries % of Population

4. Little success in reaching MDG 1 – income poverty and hunger In a market economy, families need cash to live Development practitioners – and governments – promote work (eg. livelihoods programmes; micro-credit) But, many cannot work or get enough income Global social floor provides a means of achieving MDG 1 through provision of comprehensive social security to complement work Challenging the development paradigm

5. Four essential public services: Health Education Safe water and sanitation Social security A system of regular and predictable cash transfers aimed at tackling poverty and promoting economic growth Social Security – an essential public service

6. Coverage of contributory pensions

7. Coverage of social pensions

8. 32% All households 21% Households 71% including 54% older people Households 98% only with 96% older people 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Poverty gap reduction Destitution gap reduction Impact of social pensionson poverty in South Africa

9. Impact of social pension in Mauritius

10. Nutrition: Pensions associated with a 3-4cm increase in height among children in South Africa Education: South Africa pension led to 8% increase in enrolment among poorest 20% of children Similar impact in Brazil among girls aged 12-14 Investment in children

11. Poverty targeting is difficult in developed countries – large inclusion and exclusion errors Administratively more complicated and expensive In developing countries, we do not know how to target – therefore, errors will be much greater Benefits often captured by the better-off (eg. India and Bangladesh) Community targeting causes discord in communities Targeted social pensions will be denounced as corrupt Poverty targeting will create disincentives to save and contribute to other pension schemes Greater political acceptability for universal benefits Amartya Sen: “A benefit for the poor is a poor benefit” Why universal socialpensions?

12. World Bank model of pension system Social Pensions Poor Rich

13. Model of the pension system Rich Poor

15. We need to look at the whole life cycle and associated vulnerabilities Social pensions need to complement child benefits, disability benefits, support for the unemployed and free access to health services Politically, however, social pensions are likely to be the easiest to introduce Example of southern Africa – initial political support for social pensions Happens where governments have more meaningful accountability to citizens Where governments are accountable to donors, there is a preference for targeted social assistance programmes (eg. Zambia, Malawi, Uganda, Kyrgyzstan) which are driven by northern consultants Global Social Floor need to challenge this approach and advocate for universal approaches Social pensions are part ofa broader package