socialprotection.org, 7 July 2025
July 2025 marks a pivotal moment for social protection. Meeting at the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FFD4) – the world’s largest development financing talks in a decade – world leaders adopted the Compromiso de Sevilla (2025). This landmark agreement cites “investment in social protection systems” as key to global efforts to combating inequalities.
Also included in the text was a commitment to “provide support” to developing countries that aim to increase social protection coverage by at least two percentage points per year – a target I campaigned for alongside the Global Partnership for Universal Social Protection (USP2030) for inclusion in the final text.
This explicit recognition of social protection’s central role in eradicating poverty and inequalities is a welcome step. Yet with official development assistance (ODA) falling in 2024 for the first time in six years, and predications estimating a drop of almost 20% for 2025, a fundamental question remains: in a post-aid world, where will this investment come from?