The Special Rapporteur believes the 4th International Conference for Financing for Development (FfD4), which will take place in Seville, Spain from 30 June-3 July 2025, provides a unique opportunity to confirm the pledges made in the past to put international solidarity in the service of strengthening social protection.
Almost half of the world’s population goes without social protection, and social protection still represents a negligible part of official development assistance (ODA). The FfD4 conference should address this gap.
The initial contribution to the FfD4 process from the Special Rapporteur identifies a number of new financing tools that could address this, and meet the funding shortfall that low-income countries in particular face. According to the International Labour Organization, US $308.5 billion a year would be needed to allow the 26 poorest countries, host to 9% of the world’s population, to be protected from income insecurity throughout their lives, and to have access to basic healthcare. This is too expensive for these countries, since it represents 52.3% of their total GDP. But it is affordable to the international community: it represents 1.5 times the current levels of ODA, and ODA is far from the only financing tool that there exists. The paper presented by the Special Rapporteur identifies multiple international financing options and provides estimates for each.
Read the paper, Financing Social Protection Floors
