Weathering the storm: poverty, climate change and social protection

The present report is issued at a time when multilateralism is under attack and when international solidarity is facing threats unprecedented since the Second World War. Ahead of the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development, to be held in Seville, Spain on 30 June and 1 July 2025, and the Second World Summit for Social Development, to be held in Doha from 4 to 6 November 2025, the Special Rapporteur calls for a reset. The international community must escape from the tunnel it has trapped itself in: from darkness to light.

Most urgently, Governments must take a stand against attempts to undermine global solidarity by living up to their pledges to support low-income countries in strengthening the financing and operation of social protection as a powerful tool in countering the effects of climate change.¹ For while Governments can procrastinate, while oligarchs can win elections and while authoritarian regimes can seek to hide scientific data, environmental collapse continues unabated. And it is in low-income countries and for the most vulnerable populations, where – despite having contributed the least to carbon emissions – the death and destruction will be greatest and the capacity to respond weakest.

1. A/HRC/41/39, para. 56, A/74/161, para. 86, and A/79/168, para. 85. ↩

As noted in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change sixth assessment report, social protection plays a crucial role in insuring people against climate disruptions.² In contrast to disaster risk reduction approaches, social protection – grounded in article 9 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Labour Organization (ILO) Social Security (Minimum Standards) Convention, 1952 (No. 102) – also improves protection from slow-onset events and non-economic loss and damage associated with climate change (such as harm to health). As underlined by the Secretary-General,³ strengthening social protection can also ensure that climate finance truly benefits those who need to be supported the most: people living in floodable areas because they have nowhere else to go, small-scale farmers unable to seek insurance against loss from droughts or floods, slum-dwellers impacted by landslides. Today, less than 10 per cent of international climate finance reaches the local level and smallholder farmers, who are the most vulnerable to climate disruptions, receive a meagre 1.7 per cent of climate finance, covering only a small fraction of their losses.⁴ Social protection systems can channel climate finance to where the needs are and recasting social protection to incorporate protection from climate risks would also mobilize climate finance in support of social protection.⁵

2. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “Climate Change 2023. Synthesis report”, summary for policymakers, para. C.5.3. ↩
3. A/HRC/57/30, para. 37. ↩
4. Jona Huber and Una Murray, “Turning Climate Justice into Practice? Channelling loss and damage funding through national social protection systems in climate vulnerable countries”, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews, (WIREs) Climate Change, vol. 15, No. 2 (March/April 2024), pp. 6 and 7. ↩
5. Available from https://usp2030.org/wp-content/uploads/20231201_USP2030_WG_SP_CC_2.pdf, pp. 3 and 4. ↩

In what follows, the Special Rapporteur assesses the impacts on poverty of the failure of Governments to deliver on their promises to take action on climate change and to support the universal establishment of social protection floors. He explores how social protection, together with private insurance and disaster risk reduction, can support adaptation to climate change and mitigate the impacts for low-income households. He also explains why international solidarity and a global fund for social protection are more necessary than ever. 1 A/HRC/41/39, para. 56, A/74/161, para. 86, and A/79/168, para. 85. 2 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “Climate Change 2023. Synthesis report”, summary for policymakers, para. C.5.3. 3 A/HRC/57/30, para. 37. 4 Jona Huber and Una Murray, “Turning Climate Justice into Practice? Channelling loss and damage funding through national social protection systems in climate vulnerable countries”, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews, (WIREs) Climate Change, vol. 15, No. 2 (March/April 2024), pp. 6 and 7. 5 Available from https://usp2030.org/wp-content/uploads/20231201_USP2030_WG_SP_CC_2.pdf, pp. 3 and 4. GE.25-05904 II. Climate change as an assault on the poor

Climate-related risks are becoming more frequent and severe. In all regions, droughts, floods, heatwaves, storms and wildfires are becoming the new normal.⁶ Between 2000 and 2019, floods affected 1.6 billion people worldwide and drought affected 1.43 billion people.⁷ Such disasters caused $202.7 billion in economic losses in 2023 alone.⁸ In 2019, 4.5 billion people, more than half the world’s population, were exposed to one of the major extreme weather events linked to climate change: extreme flood, drought, cyclone or heatwave.⁹

6. World Meteorological Organization (WMO), “State of the climate 2024. Update for COP29” (2024). ↩
7. WMO, “2021 State of climate services: Water (2021), p. 9. ↩
8. Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, “Disaster year in review 2023” (April 2024), p. 1. ↩
9. Miki Khanh Doan and others, Counting People Exposed to, Vulnerable to, or at High Risk from Climate Shocks, World Bank Group (2023), p. 26. ↩

The stability of whole regions is at risk. By 2050, 216 million people could be internally displaced as a result of climate change, including 85.7 million (4.2 per cent of the total population) in sub-Saharan Africa alone.¹⁰ That, together with climate-related disasters, will increase the likelihood of conflicts in the most fragile regions.¹¹ Climate change will also lead to crop failures in regions that today serve as breadbaskets¹² and critical water stress, already affecting countries hosting one tenth of the world’s population, will worsen:¹³ “Hunger will spiral out of control”, the World Food Programme warns, “if the world fails to take immediate climate action.”¹⁴ For developing countries in particular, climate change will erase many years of development efforts, prompting the Special Rapporteur on the right to development to describe climate change as a major threat to the right to development.¹⁵ In developing countries, the loss and damage from climate change amounted to at least $435 billion in 2020 and this figure will rise to at least $580 billion by 2030, not even taking into account non-economic losses and damages.¹⁶

10. Viviane Clement and others, Groundswell Part 2: Acting on Internal Climate Migration, World Bank (2021), p. xxii. ↩
11. Ilona Auer Frege and others, The WorldRiskReport 2024. Focus: Multiple Crises ReliefWeb (2024), p. 21. ↩
12. Monica Caparas and others, “Increasing risks of crop failure and water scarcity in global breadbaskets by 2030”, Environmental Research Letters, vol. 16, No. 10 (September 2021). pp. 10 and 11. ↩
13. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and UN-Water, Progress on the Level of Water Stress. Global Status and Acceleration Needs for SDG Indicator 6.4.2 (2021), p. 33. ↩
14. https://www.wfp.org/global-hunger-crisis (under climate). ↩
15. A/79/168, para. 41. ↩
16. A/HRC/57/30, para. 2. ↩

Scientists are warning us. Civil society and social movements are taking to the streets. People express their fears about extreme weather events in surveys.¹⁷ Courts are condemning Governments for not moving fast enough to mitigate climate change, thereby committing human rights violations on a large scale.¹⁸ However, impunity and irresponsibility continue to prevail. We are sleepwalking towards the cliff edge, committing collective suicide in slow motion. Indeed, our fetishism of economic growth is such that we continue to push on the accelerator pedal. A new record was set in 2023: 57.1 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) were pumped into the atmosphere, 1.3 per cent more (0.7 GtCO2e) than the previous year, a sharp increase in comparison to the average of 0.8 per cent growth each year between 2010 and 2019. It is not only that we are increasing emissions: we are increasing them faster than ever.19 6 World Meteorological Organization (WMO), “State of the climate 2024. Update for COP29” (2024). 7 WMO, “2021 State of climate services: Water (2021), p. 9. 8 Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, “Disaster year in review 2023” (April 2024), p. 1. 9 Miki Khanh Doan and others, Counting People Exposed to, Vulnerable to, or at High Risk from Climate Shocks, World Bank Group (2023), p. 26. 10 Viviane Clement and others, Groundswell Part 2: Acting on Internal Climate Migration, World Bank (2021), p. xxii. 11 Ilona Auer Frege and others, The WorldRiskReport 2024. Focus: Multiple Crises ReliefWeb (2024), p. 21. 12 Monica Caparas and others, “Increasing risks of crop failure and water scarcity in global breadbaskets by 2030”, Environmental Research Letters, vol. 16, No. 10 (September 2021). pp. 10 and 11. 13 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and UN-Water, Progress on the Level of Water Stress. Global Status and Acceleration Needs for SDG Indicator 6.4.2 (2021), p. 33. 14 https://www.wfp.org/global-hunger-crisis (under climate). 15 A/79/168, para. 41. 16 A/HRC/57/30, para. 2. 17 World Economic Forum, Global Risks Report 2024, p. 6. 18 See A/78/255. 19 United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Emissions Gap Report 2024, p. 4. GE.25-05904

17. World Economic Forum, Global Risks Report 2024, p. 6. ↩
18. See A/78/255. ↩

The failure to take bold action to mitigate climate change will hit people in poverty especially hard.²⁰ While over half the world’s population is at risk of major disruptions linked to climate change, the risk is unevenly spread: 2.3 billion of those facing such risks are at the $6.85 poverty line, and 390 million live on less than $2.15, falling below the international extreme poverty line.²¹ Over the past 30 years, 9 out of 10 deaths and 60 per cent of economic losses from disasters have taken place in developing countries²² and between 2000 and 2019, low-income countries accounted for 23 per cent of total deaths due to disasters, despite accounting for less than 10 per cent of the world’s population.²³ The reduction in outdoor work productivity resulting from extreme heat will make this worse; for example, in construction and agriculture the loss of working hours worldwide will amount to 3.8 per cent by 2030 – the equivalent of 136 million full-time jobs.²⁴ In addition to the direct impact of climate change-related disasters therefore, taking into account the other four channels through which climate change can have an impact on poverty ‒ a reduction in agricultural productivity, an increase in food prices, the loss of outdoor work productivity due to extreme temperatures and the health impacts from the spread of malaria, diarrhoea and stunting ‒ the World Bank has estimated that as a result of climate change 132 million additional people might be pushed into poverty by 2030.²⁵

20. A/78/255, para. 2. ↩
21. Miki Khanh Doan and others, Counting People Exposed to, Vulnerable to, or at High Risk from Climate Shocks, p. 26. ↩
22. See https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/immersive-story/2023/11/14/climate-action-game-changers-adaptation-to-climate-shocks. ↩
23. Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters and United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, “Human cost of disasters: An overview of the last 20 years, 2000-2019”, p. 22. ↩
24. ILO, Working on a Warmer Planet: The Impact of Heat Stress on Labour Productivity and Decent Work (2019), p. 11. ↩
25. World Bank Group, Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2020: Reversals of Fortune (2020), p. 38. ↩

Within wealthy regions, racial and ethnic minorities and low-income households are the most vulnerable and least resilient to natural hazards.²⁶ Globally, people in poverty living in rural areas are particularly at risk from river floods, lack of or excessive rainfall, or extreme changes in temperature, because they often live in high-risk locations, rely on agriculture and natural resources for their livelihoods, and are less well covered by social protection; moreover, their ability to mobilize savings in times of crisis is limited.²⁷ The vulnerability of low-income households to shocks also leads them to be risk-averse: as they cannot afford to lose one year of production, they prefer to plant low-return, low-risk crops, thereby reducing their own income even when disaster does not hit.²⁸ Moreover, in both rural and urban areas, people in poverty, who are both more exposed to climate-related risks and more vulnerable to such risks, are often forced in the face of disaster to make choices that have long-term impacts, such as withdrawing a child from school or cutting healthcare expenses – choices which have long-term impacts that go beyond the loss of assets in the short term.²⁹ Disadvantaged groups are therefore more likely to reduce their future income-earning ability due to climate-related events.³⁰ That results in what the Special Rapporteur on the right to development calls the “dual disproportionality” of climate change, namely that the impacts will be felt especially hard in low-income and lower-middle income countries, and within those countries, those impacts will affect low-income households in particular.³¹

26. Joseph W. Lockwood and others, “Socioeconomic distributional impacts of evaluating flood mitigation activities using equity-weighted benefit-cost analysis,” Environmental Research Letters, vol. 19, No. 7 (June 2024), p. 1. ↩
27. Federico Spano and Claudia Patrone, “Social protection and climate change”, FAO (2021), p. 4. ↩
28. Stephane Hallegatte and others, Unbreakable: Building Poor People’s Resilience in the Face of Disaster, World Bank Group, (2017), p. 5. ↩
29. Ibid., pp. 4 and 5. ↩
30. See Barbara D’Ambrogi-Ola and others, Actuarial Considerations around Climate-Related Risks on Social Security, (June 2024), p. 16. ↩
31. A/79/168, para. 45. ↩

The former Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights described climate change as “an unconscionable assault on the poor”.³² The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has echoed this warning.³³ ILO has described climate and environmental change as “the largest threats to poverty reduction, decent work, sustainable development and social justice”.³⁴ As the Secretary-General has warned, citing the Human Rights Committee’s general comment No. 36 (2018) on the right to life, a vicious cycle is emerging: climate change exacerbates poverty and inequalities, while poverty and inequalities, in turn, exacerbate climate risks: the higher the rate of inequality, the more floods claim lives.³⁵

32. A/HRC/41/39, para. 88. ↩
33. A/HRC/55/37, para. 15. ↩
34. ILO, World Social Protection Report 2024–2026: Universal Social Protection for Climate Action and a Just Transition (2024), p. 5. ↩
35. A/HRC/57/30, para. 13. ↩

Not only will poor countries face the worst impacts from climate change and not only are low-income households most at risk, they are also the countries and groups that have contributed the least to manufacturing the crisis. There is not only a double disproportionality, but also a double injustice.

While floods have taken lives and caused enormous damage in Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium in July 2021, and while megafires shocked Canada in 2023 (destroying more than 18 million hectares of forest) and have become a regular occurrence in regions such as California, Greece or Portugal, climate change threatens the very existence of small island developing States and will cause the worst impacts in the least developed countries. While the per capita greenhouse gas emissions in the United States of America and the Russian Federation are significantly higher than the world average of 6.6 tons of CO2 equivalent, they remain much lower in the low-income countries. Historic cumulative CO2 emissions (including emissions resulting from shifts in land use) also rank the United States as the country that has produced the most global CO2 emissions to date, followed by the European Union and China; whereas the cumulative emissions of India, the least developed countries and African Union countries represent a minor share of historic cumulative emissions, despite their large populations. Wide differences exist between income groups: the wealthiest households, or those with the highest income, most of whom are concentrated in wealthier countries, have the highest emissions per capita.³⁶

36. UNEP, Emissions Gap Report 2024, p. 12. ↩

The countries that benefited the least from the industrial revolution are now suffering its impacts without having the means to protect themselves³⁷ and the poorest households that have been left behind in the process of economic growth and are often racialized are the most at risk of environmental collapse. Researchers speak of a process of “atmospheric colonization”³⁸ and the Secretary-General sees this as an instance of “structural racism”.³⁹

37. A/HRC/57/30, para. 6. ↩
38. See Jason Hickel, “Quantifying national responsibility for climate breakdown: An equality-based attribution approach for carbon dioxide emissions in excess of the planetary boundary”, The Lancet Planetary Health, vol. 4, No. 9 (September 2020). ↩
39. A/HRC/57/30, para. 6. ↩

Such findings may be disturbing, but they are not disputed. The Special Rapporteur draws this conclusion: low-income households should be better protected from the impacts of climate disruptions and poor countries should be better supported in their efforts to adapt to climate change. Those two objectives should now be brought together by supporting the efforts of poor countries to establish social protection floors, as a means of strengthening the resilience of the households that are most vulnerable to climate change-related shocks. 32 A/HRC/41/39, para. 88. 33 A/HRC/55/37, para. 15. 34 ILO, World Social Protection Report 2024–2026: Universal Social Protection for Climate Action and a Just Transition (2024), p. 5. 35 A/HRC/57/30, para. 13. 36 UNEP, Emissions Gap Report 2024, p. 12. 37 A/HRC/57/30, para. 6. 38 See Jason Hickel, “Quantifying national responsibility for climate breakdown: An equality-based attribution approach for carbon dioxide emissions in excess of the planetary boundary”, The Lancet Planetary Health, vol. 4, No. 9 (September 2020). 39 A/HRC/57/30, para. 6. GE.25-05904

Social protection coverage remains very insufficient in many regions. Although half of the world’s population now enjoys at least some form of social protection, 47.6 per cent – as many as 3.8 billion individuals – are left entirely unprotected and even those that are protected rarely enjoy the full range of social security guarantees as defined in the ILO Social Protection Floors Recommendation, 2012 (No. 202), unanimously endorsed at the 2012 International Labour Conference. In the 50 countries most vulnerable to climate change, only 25 per cent of the population is covered, leaving 2.1 billion people unprotected, and in the 20 most vulnerable countries, fewer than 1 in 10 individuals are covered (8.7 per cent), leaving 364 million people to fend for themselves.⁴⁰ Moreover, even where social protection systems do exist, they are often ill-equipped to handle co-variate shocks, such as extreme weather events linked to climate change that have a simultaneous impact on entire communities or large population groups. Such shocks not only increase demand for social protection but also reduce public revenues, placing immense strain on systems that frequently lack the capacity to respond effectively. What can be done?

40. ILO, World Social Protection Report 2024–2026, pp. 51 and 52. ↩

Private insurance may provide some form of protection against the loss of assets such as crops, housing or property or livestock. Index-based (or parametric) insurance mechanisms, which provide payouts based on the occurrence of events like droughts, floods or landslides, rather than actual losses, can ensure rapid payouts and mitigate moral hazards (the risks that individuals may be more inclined to take because they have reason to believe that an insurer will cover the cost of damages).⁴¹ Insurers may also lower premiums for clients who implement preventive measures, such as installing anti-flood doors or early warning systems.⁴²

41. Lisa Dale, Climate Change Adaptation: An Earth Institute Sustainability Primer, p. 103. ↩
42. See European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority, “Impact underwriting. Report on the implementation of climate-related adaptation measures in non-life underwriting practices” (February 2023). ↩

However, as extreme weather events grow more frequent and the results more costly, insurance premiums are rising. Insured losses from natural disasters – most which are linked to climate change – totalled $120 billion in 2021 (out of $280 billion in total disaster losses).⁴³ In 2023, they exceeded $100 billion for the fourth consecutive year.⁴⁴ The impacts of climate change are, moreover, difficult to anticipate and integrate into existing actuarial models, threatening continuous underwriting losses for insurers unless pricing is adjusted to reflect future risks rather than historical data.⁴⁵

43. See Munich Re, “Hurricanes, cold waves, tornadoes: Weather disasters in USA dominate natural disaster losses in 2021, 10 January 2022. ↩
44. Brooke Masters, “Insurers embrace climate change investments as catastrophe costs mount,” Financial Times, 15 October 2024. ↩
45. International Association of Insurance Supervisors, Global Insurance Market Report (GIMAR) (December 2023), p. 52. ↩

In emerging and developing countries, private insurance against losses from natural disasters is already extremely scarce⁴⁶ and in highly exposed, low-resilience States, especially those affected by conflicts and political instability, losses could soon become uninsurable altogether.⁴⁷ The Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, and on the right to non-discrimination in this context rightly speaks about climate change as causing an “insurability crisis”.⁴⁸ That affects low-income households in particular, which are more likely to live in areas with increased exposure to natural catastrophes (where land and housing are more affordable) and cannot easily relocate to safer areas or invest in disaster-resistant housing.⁴⁹ A vicious cycle emerges: low-income households often lack insurance, either because it is unaffordable or because they reside in high-risk areas deemed uninsurable, further exacerbating their vulnerability and exposure to future shocks.

46. Munich Re, “Natural disaster risks. Rising trend in losses”. ↩
47. World Economic Forum, Global Risks Report 2024, p. 45. ↩
48. A/HRC/52/28, para. 20. ↩
49. Anisha Deria and others, “Evaluating implications of flood vulnerability factors with respect to income levels for building long-term disaster resilience of low-income communities”, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, vol. 48 (September 2020). ↩

A risk is not in itself insurable or not, however; its coverage by private insurers depends on the financial capacity of insurers to cover the risk, on the regulatory framework and on the extent to which Governments intervene in the most catastrophic cases.⁵⁰ Across the United States, for example, individual States are exploring the idea of State-backed insurance providers to act as an insurer of last resort for homeowners unable to secure private coverage.⁵¹ Government intervention could play a crucial role in ensuring climate-related risks remain insurable, by integrating preventive and protective measures, adopting risk-adjusted insurance models and providing public support in the event of extreme disasters⁵² similar to the Flood Re scheme in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.⁵³

50. Qihao He and Michael Faure, “Mitigation of long-term risks and the role of insurance: A behavioural law and economics perspective”, European Journal of Risk Regulation, vol. 14 No. 4 (December 2023). ↩
51. Senate Budget Committee, Next to Fall: The Climate-Driven Insurance Crisis is Here - and Getting Worse (December 2024). ↩
52. Allianz, “We need a comprehensive concept against extreme weather”, 6 June 2024. ↩
53. European Central Bank and European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority, “Towards a European system for natural catastrophe risk management: The possible role of European solutions in reducing the impact of natural catastrophes stemming from climate change” (December 2024). ↩

Indeed, Governments increasingly recognize the need to intervene in response to growing climate-related risks. At their meeting in Italy in 2024, the leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) acknowledged that rising damages and losses from natural hazards were straining the capacity of private insurance markets to provide adequate coverage. They emphasized that closing the protection gap required “a collaborative effort between multiple parties, including Governments, insurance supervisors (both market conduct regulators and prudential supervisors) and the insurance sector”.⁵⁴ The G7 encouraged the development of public-private insurance programmes to leverage the strengths of both sectors. Governments could support private insurance through regulatory supervision and improved access to risk data or, where private insurance or reinsurance solutions are unavailable, share risks and costs through public-private partnerships.

54. G7 Italia 2024, “High-level framework for public-private insurance programmes against natural hazards” (May 2024), p. 2. ↩

That idea aligns closely with the 2023 call to action of the International Association of Insurance Supervisors, in which it highlighted the way in which the public and private sectors could mutualize their efforts: while regulators should oversee the insurance sector and Governments provide financial support and secure access to data and information, private insurers could bring their expertise in underwriting, risk assessment and claims management. The Association noted in the call for action that: “By sharing risks and costs, these partnerships … can reduce the overall cost of insurance and make it more affordable for low-income households and small businesses.”⁵⁵ For example, the Philippines Insurance Commission has set up a catastrophe insurance facility for typhoon, flood and earthquake risks that cooperates with the insurance and reinsurance associations and it has set minimum rates for catastrophe risk insurance that will support the operation of the facility.⁵⁶

55. International Association of Insurance Supervisors, “A call to action: The role of insurance supervisors in addressing natural catastrophe protection gaps” (November 2023), pp. 21 and 22. ↩
56. Ibid., p. 22. ↩

The design of such arrangements, combining private insurance with public intervention, should take into account the so-called charity hazard, also known as the “Samaritan’s dilemma”: if private actors anticipate that the Government will intervene to compensate them for any losses they might incur, they may be unwilling to buy an insurance policy, making it even more difficult for private insurance to provide a solution.⁵⁷ Mandatory coverage (as in the Caisse Centrale de Réassurance insurance system in France) may provide a solution for this and it could also avoid the “adverse selection” effect, since not only bad risks but also good risks would be covered, introducing a form of solidarity across the whole pool. Differentiated premiums based on different risks and the adoption of preventative measures by the individuals insured might be introduced to make the system viable without creating perverse incentives. Such an approach would allow Governments to act, in effect, as reinsurers of last resort, but without governmental intervention crowding out private insurance.

57. See Susanna Paleari, “Disaster risk insurance: A comparison of national schemes in the EU-28”, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, vol. 35 (April 2019). and Paul A. Raschky and Hannelore Weck-Hannemann, “Charity hazard – A real hazard to natural disaster insurance?”, Environmental Hazards, vol. 7, No. 4 (2007). ↩

Reliance on private insurance, which protects from the loss of assets, can be complementary to social protection, which provides income security. That is true even where low-income households have no access to private insurance, because it is unaffordable for them. If higher-income households are covered by private insurance schemes, public funds for post-disaster relief can be better focused on supporting poorer households.⁵⁸

58. Stephane Hallegatte and others, Shock Waves. Managing the Impacts of Climate Change on Poverty (2016), pp. 157 and 158. ↩

Indeed, a number of responses to the questionnaire sent to Member States in preparation of the present report point to the benefits of such a complementarity. Spain, for instance, noted that protection from climate change-related risks relied on two instruments: an insurance against extraordinary risks, which provided coverage for insured property and people, and combined agricultural insurance, both of which relied on close collaboration between the private and public sectors, through the Insurance Compensation Consortium (Consorcio de Compensación de Seguros) and the State Entity for Agricultural Insurance (Entidad Estatal de Seguros Agrarios). Egypt expressed the view that protection against climate change-related risks should be a shared responsibility between the State and the private insurance sector, with the State responsible for setting social protection policies and providing support to poor families. The private insurance sector could play a role in offering specialized insurance products, with coordination between the two parties achieving comprehensive coverage. Slovenia, referring to the floods it experienced in 2023 and the gaps in protection that they revealed, noted that the governmental Insurance Supervision Agency had proposed a partnership model with the Government covering extreme risks and insurance companies covering other risks. Similar positions were expressed, inter alia, by Ireland, Mexico and Paraguay.

In low- and middle-income countries, where insurance coverage is minimal and State capabilities are limited, severe weather hazards are often countered through international humanitarian assistance. That approach is now reaching breaking point, however. The gap between humanitarian needs and the response of the international community is increasing. While in 2023, international humanitarian assistance was at a historically high level at over $43 billion, interagency appeals faced a funding gap of $32 billion, an all-time record level.⁵⁹ Moreover, such interventions are largely unpredictable: in 2022, only 1.1 per cent of disaster financing had been arranged in advance.⁶⁰ Donors either intervene post hoc, after a crisis has unfolded, in order to rescue or compensate the victims, or not at all. Such a post-disaster model for responding to disasters, it has been noted, “is hardly worthy of the twenty-first century. In fact, it feels distinctly medieval”.⁶¹

59. Ibid. and See Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, “Global humanitarian overview 2024, August update (snapshot as of 31 August 2024)” (11 September 2024), available from https://reliefweb.int/report/world/global-humanitarian-overview-2024-august-update-snapshot-31-august-2024, p. 1. ↩
60. See Michèle Plichta and Lydia Poole, The State of Pre-arranged Financing for Disasters 2024, Centre for Disaster Protection (2024). ↩
61. Daniel J. Clarke and Stefan Dercon, Dull Disasters? How Planning Ahead Will Make a Difference (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2016), p. 16. ↩

A shift from short-term humanitarian action to longer-term development efforts to improve resilience against shocks is the only way to address chronic poverty ‒ tackling its root causes rather than merely responding to the immediate needs of people who remain trapped in poverty because they lack the means to recover from crises that lead to forced displacement or to the loss of productive assets.⁶² That shift is also driven by the evolving nature of humanitarian action, which increasingly focuses on protracted crises – situations where disasters or conflicts are recurrent, governance is fragile and sustained humanitarian support is required. Today, almost one quarter of the world’s population lives in such contexts and the demand for long-term assistance has surged: while only 29 per cent of the funding for inter-agency humanitarian appeals was allocated to protracted crises in 2014, that figure had risen to 91 per cent by 2024.⁶³ The recurrent and co-variate shocks compounded by climate change in particular demand more than relief-oriented interventions; they require long-term, predictable support, shifting from a humanitarian approach to a development approach.⁶⁴

62. Rachel Sabates-Wheeler and others, “Strengthening responses at the nexus of social protection, humanitarian aid and climate shocks in protracted crises: BASIC research framing paper” (May 2022), p. 20. ↩
63. Niklas Rieger and others, Falling Short? Humanitarian Funding and Reform (October 2024), p. 5. ↩
64. Employment and Decent Work for Peace and Resilience Recommendation, 2017 (No. 205), para. 48. ↩

Social protection plays a crucial role in that transition, serving as a vehicle for long-term development and strengthening the capacity of households to adapt to co-variate shocks.⁶⁵ Shocks and disasters cannot be prevented, but Governments can plan ahead to mitigate their impacts and ensure that the response will be speedy and reach the right people.⁶⁶ While the occurrence and severity of droughts, floods or hurricanes is hardly predictable, their recurrence is and national response systems can thus be pre-planned. Anticipating crises is precisely the role of social protection: to ensure that responses are not improvised and that resources are ring-fenced in anticipation of the need to provide support. This does not mean that ex post instruments, such as budget reallocations and humanitarian assistance, will not be needed, especially for major events in which prearranged instruments are unable to fully compensate for the losses suffered by households. Rather, the two approaches should be seen as complementary.⁶⁷

65. See Christophe Béné, “Social protection and climate change”, IDS Bulletin, vol. 42, No. 6 (November 2011). ↩
66. Evie Calcutt, Barry Maher and Catherine Fitzgibbon, “Emerging lessons in financing adaptive social protection” (2020), p. 6. ↩
67. Ibid., p. 31. ↩

Social protection systems rely on the identification of those entitled to benefits in registries (a task facing important challenges),⁶⁸ and they require strong administrative capacity. As illustrated by the experience of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, countries with robust social protection programmes are better equipped to protect populations in times of crisis,⁶⁹ as such programmes can better channel humanitarian responses to climate shocks.⁷⁰ Rather than through humanitarian support, the people affected should be protected through rights-based support schemes providing them with legal entitlements. Indeed, this is what shock-responsive social protection was intended to address when the concept was initially introduced: it seeks to leverage early warning systems, funding, planning and targeting mechanisms to scale up social protection responses to shocks, thereby reducing pressure on humanitarian systems, ensuring the inclusion of vulnerable populations, and building government ownership.⁷¹ Finally, countries in which large parts of the population are destitute show heightened political fragility and lower trust in government, which hinders any State-led response to crises. It is also for that reason that social protection should be seen as an essential part of disaster risk reduction.

68. Stephen Kidd, Diloá Athias, and Idil Mohamud, Social Registries: A Short History of Abject Failure, Development Pathways (June 2021), p. ii, noting high targeting errors in social registries. ↩
69. See Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, “Looking back to look ahead: A rightsbased approach to social protection in the post-COVID-19 economic recovery” (11 September 2020). ↩
70. FAO and Red Cross and Red Crescent Climate Centre, “Managing Climate Risks through Social Protection - Reducing Rural Poverty and Building Resilient Agricultural Livelihoods, p. 29. Some social protection programmes are explicitly connected to the need to provide an immediate response to shocks, such as natural disasters. That is the case, for instance, of the Baxnaano programme in Somalia, launched in 2019. See Afrah Al-Ahmadi and Giuseppe Zampaglione, From Protracted Humanitarian Relief to State-Led Social Safety Net System: Somalia Baxnaano Program (January 2022). ↩
71. See Clare O’Brien and others, Shock-Responsive Social Protection Systems Research, synthesis report, Oxford Policy Management (January 2018). ↩

The consultations led by the Special Rapporteur in the preparation of the present report allowed him to harvest a range of good practices, showing how humanitarian responses were increasingly moving from being ex post and responsive to being ex ante and proactive.⁷² What is needed however, is to move from a humanitarian approach to rights-based social protection. Guaranteeing individuals at least social protection floors in the form of legal entitlements they may claim not only builds resilience before the occurrence of shocks, it also ensures that once a disaster hits, support will reach the right people. It reduces the risks of corruption and favouritism in the delivery of support and it reduces the rate of non-take-up of whatever forms of support may exist.

72. The transitional development assistance model pioneered by Germany stands out in this regard. ↩

The concept of adaptive social protection was initially developed in recognition of the need to integrate social protection with climate change adaptation and disaster risk management, bringing together these three distinct interventions of the State.⁷³ It recasts social protection systems in order to strengthen adaptation to co-variate shocks and develop more climate-resilient livelihoods. It thus introduces flexibility and improves coordination between climate change adaptation, disaster risk management and social protection.⁷⁴

73. See Katherine Vincent, Tracy Cull, “Adaptive social protection: Making concepts a reality. Guidance notes for practitioners”, (December 2012), available from https://www.ids.ac.uk/download.php?file=files/dmfile/ASPGuidanceNotes_FINAL.pdf. ↩
74. Martina Ulrichs, Rachel Slater, How Can Social Protection Build Resilience? Insights from Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda, Overseas Development Institute (2016), p. 4. ↩

Adaptive social protection goes beyond shock-responsive social protection by also incorporating a long-term vision for increasing household resilience.⁷⁵ The objectives are to prepare for shocks by helping to build assets and broadcasting information through social assistance, to help cope with shocks by adjusting benefit packages and increasing the number of beneficiaries as required and to ensure adaptation to future shocks.⁷⁶

75. See Christoph Béné, “Social protection and climate change”. ↩
76. Thomas Bowen and others, Adaptive Social Protection: Building Resilience to Shocks, World Bank, (2020). ↩

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 notes that “addressing underlying disaster risk factors through disaster risk-informed public and private investments is more cost-effective than primary reliance on post-disaster response and recovery, and contributes to sustainable development” and the recommendation is made to rely on “social safety nets as disaster risk reduction measures linked to and integrated with livelihood enhancement programmes in order to ensure resilience to shocks at the household and community levels”.⁷⁷ At the twenty-eighth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, held in Dubai in 2023, the States Parties committed to substantially reduce “the adverse effects of climate change on poverty eradication and livelihoods, in particular by promoting the use of adaptive social protection measures for all”.⁷⁸ The Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage, also discussed at the twenty-eighth Conference of the Parties, was established on the understanding that multilateral development banks (including the World Bank) and ILO would scale up support for adaptive social protection mechanisms.

77. Paras. 19 (j), and 31 (g). ↩
78. Decision -/CMA.5 (December 13, 2023), available fromhttps://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/cma5_auv_8a_gga.pdf, para. 9. ↩

Programmes integrating disaster risk reduction and social protection are becoming more common in Africa and South Asia.⁷⁹ The Productive Safety Net Programme in Ethiopia and the Hunger Safety Net Programme in Kenya, for example, have demonstrated the capacity to horizontally expand their safety net programmes based on needs generated by drought and related food insecurity.⁸⁰

79. See Alex Arnall and others, Adaptive Social Protection: Mapping the Evidence and Policy Context in the Agriculture Sector in South Asia, Institute of Development Studies, (2010). ↩
80. See Thomas Bowen and others, Adaptive Social Protection: Building Resilience to Shocks. ↩

In the Sahel region, Governments have significantly expanded their national systems by deploying programmes focused on resilience, productive inclusion and shock response, such as the Programme national de bourses de sécurité familiale in Senegal or Tekavoul in Mauritania. They have put in place social registries, now including information on an estimated 68 per cent of poor and vulnerable households.⁸¹ They have improved early warning systems to allow for the use of satellite imagery to better anticipate droughts and potential food insecurity crises so as to trigger social protection responses.⁸² They are also establishing financing mechanisms, such as the Fonds national de réponse aux crises alimentaires et de nutrition in Mauritania⁸³ that pre-positions resources ahead of shocks for more timely support. Countries such as Chad are including refugee populations in their national social protection systems. Key partners in the region have also promoted the convergence and alignment of their support with national programmes and use national systems to provide their support, thereby contributing to expanding the reach and efficiency of adaptive social protection in the region. Such programmes improve resilience to climate change in a cost-effective manner.

81. Sahel Adaptive Social Protection Program, Annual Report, Fiscal Year 2024, p. 13, and Valentina Barca and others, The Challenge of Coordination and Inclusion: Use of Social Registries and Broader Social Protection Information Systems for Capturing Multiple Vulnerabilities in West Africa (2023). ↩
82. Aline Coudouel, Silvia Fuselli and Mira Saidi, Stress Testing Adaptive Social Protection Systems in the Sahel (2023). ↩
83. Rafael Van der Borght, Oscar A. Ishizawa and Matthieu Lefebvre, “Financing food insecurity risk – a proactive approach: The Mauritania National Fund for Food and Nutrition crisis response” (2023). ↩

Building on, and further strengthening, the capability of countries to deliver adaptive social protection is critical to addressing the resilience and adaptation of the most vulnerable to climate change. Well-established adaptive social protection systems ensure reach, efficiency and effectiveness in delivering resilience-building interventions at scale. In terms of reach, social protection mechanisms are uniquely positioned to reach the most climate-affected populations by utilizing targeting infrastructure such as social registries, beneficiary databases and early-warning systems – many of which are already in place and operational in numerous countries. Such systems ensure that interventions are directed toward the most vulnerable households and communities, particularly those at high risk of climate shocks. Adaptive social protection enhances efficiency by streamlining the delivery of support at scale through integrated digital payment platforms, reducing transaction costs, minimizing leakage and enabling timely responses to climate-induced crises. Finally, it can be highly effective in achieving long-term climate resilience, as it combines immediate shock-responsive measures with interventions that promote livelihood diversification, asset accumulation and adaptive capacity. By integrating climate adaptation with social protection, Governments and funders can rapidly scale up support using existing structures rather than building new, parallel systems from scratch. That ensures that scarce funds are deployed in a manner that maximizes impact, fosters sustainability and contributes to systemic resilience.

Full integration of social protection not only with disaster risk reduction but also with climate change adaptation is less frequent. Some programmes, however, can both support livelihoods and contribute to adapting to the slow-onset impacts of climate change and to disaster risk reduction at the same time. That is the case with initiatives that improve the asset base of the poor and help to diversify their livelihoods, while at the same contributing to strengthening ecosystems. Examples of such “win-win” approaches that simultaneously meet immediate needs and reduce future vulnerabilities are the conservation of mangrove belts, coral reefs, wetlands and forests through community-based natural resource management, sustainable water management, improving local infrastructure and crop management.⁸⁴ In an earlier contribution on employment guarantee programmes, the Special Rapporteur described such programmes that could both improve income security and favour adaptation to climate change.⁸⁵

84. Task Force on Climate Change, Vulnerable Communities and Adaptation, “Livelihoods and climate change. Combining disaster risk reduction, natural resource management and climate change adaptation in a new approach to the reduction of vulnerability and poverty”, (2003), p. 27. ↩
85. A/HRC/53/33, para. 25. ↩

A number of strategies can be relied upon to ensure that social protection will be responsive to co-variate shocks (rapid-onset and slow-onset) and deliver an effective shock response.⁸⁶ Programmes delivering social assistance through cash transfers, in kind transfers, public works programmes and food subsidies can be tweaked to better address vulnerabilities during a crisis by improving coverage, timeliness or predictability, for instance by waiving conditionalities, by allowing over the counter (manual) cash payments instead of electronic payments during natural calamities or by prioritizing programme expansion in vulnerable areas, such as those prone to droughts and natural hazards. The level or duration of a social protection intervention can be increased to meet the needs of affected or vulnerable households and additional beneficiaries can be temporarily included.

86. Clare O’Brien and others, Shock-Responsive Social Protection Systems Research. ↩

A rights-based approach to social protection is essential to ensuring that it will effectively improve adaptation to climate change. Such an approach establishes clear, objective criteria for eligibility and entitlement levels, ensuring that the intended beneficiaries can claim their rights and challenge any failure to provide the support they are entitled to.⁸⁷ Providing legally enforceable entitlements to individuals thus improves the targeting of the individuals and households that need support (ensuring that they are effectively reached), the timeliness of the intervention (ensuring an early response rather than a delayed response, before households affected have had to sell valuable assets to survive or to migrate from an affected area) and the predictability of the support provided by the State.

87. ILO, World Social Protection Report 2024–2026, box 2.4, p. 26. ↩

However much the world would like social protection to be strengthened in low-income countries in order to fulfil its role in protecting people in poverty from climate risks, progress will only be achieved with increased international support. But can international solidarity be rescued?

In the United States, the new administration that took office on 20 January 2025 adopted on day one an Executive Order entitled “Reevaluating and realigning United States foreign aid”, suspending foreign development assistance for 90 days to facilitate an “assessment of programmatic efficiencies and consistency with United States foreign policy”.⁸⁸ On 24 January 2025, the Department of State sent to all contracting and agreement officers and implementing partners of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and to all other relevant agencies and internal offices, a “Notice of implementation of executive order on reevaluating and realigning United States foreign aid”, including stop-work orders and an instruction to amend or suspend existing awards.89 84 Task Force on Climate Change, Vulnerable Communities and Adaptation, “Livelihoods and climate change. Combining disaster risk reduction, natural resource management and climate change adaptation in a new approach to the reduction of vulnerability and poverty”, (2003), p. 27. 85 A/HRC/53/33, para. 25. 86 Clare O’Brien and others, Shock-Responsive Social Protection Systems Research. 87 ILO, World Social Protection Report 2024–2026, box 2.4, p. 26. 88 Available from https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/reevaluating-andrealigning-united-states-foreign-aid/. 89 Available from https://www.cogr.edu/sites/default/files/Notice%20on%20Implementation%20of%20Executive%20O rder%20on%20Reevaluating%20and%20Realigning%20United%20States%20Foreign%20Aid.pdf. GE.25-05904

88. Available from https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/reevaluating-and-realigning-united-states-foreign-aid/. ↩

The choice of the United States to turn away from international cooperation is shocking. It is costing lives all over the developing world. But while the example of the United States is extreme, this worrying trend is not limited to one country. Between 1990 and 2022, the share of European Union aid going to the least developed countries decreased from 52 per cent to 19 per cent of the total⁹⁰ and the slide continues. According to some estimates, the average reduction of support across the least developed countries could amount to 35 per cent for the period 2025–2027, when compared to the amounts allocated for the period 2021–2024.⁹¹ The focus of the European Union is increasingly on the so-called Global Gateway: investments that are of strategic importance to the European Union and that will facilitate access to critical minerals in particular, rather than on forms of support that could contribute the most to poverty reduction. And with few exceptions, European Union member States are reducing, sometimes drastically, the budget dedicated to official development assistance (ODA). Germany, for instance, cut €2.7 billion from its foreign development budget in the period 2023–2024 and €930 million from its humanitarian aid budget.⁹² France, which has been regularly increasing its aid budget in recent years and had set an objective of reaching 0.7 per cent of its gross national income in ODA by 2025, has postponed that target and has instead reversed that trend: French ODA diminished by €742 million in 2024 and by a further cut of more than €2 billion in 2025.⁹³ Many more examples could be given.

90. See https://www.devex.com/news/eu-aid-to-least-developed-countries-is-trending-way-down-108620. ↩
91. See https://www.devex.com/news/scoop-the-eu-aid-cuts-revealed-108390. ↩
92. See https://www.devex.com/news/special-saturday-edition-eu-aid-s-annus-horribilis-108976. ↩
93. See https://focus2030.org/La-France-revient-sur-ses-engagements-en-matiere-d-aide-publique-au (in French). ↩

Indeed, further cuts can be expected to be announced in 2025. Many countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development facing high levels of debt are adopting austerity measures, which will include reductions in aid spending. European countries in particular are reallocating significant budgets to defence spending, in order to take into account the new threats to peace and security resulting from neo-imperialist expansionism. The decision announced by the United Kingdom in February 2025 to cut its development budget from 0.5 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) to 0.3 per cent, in order to raise the defence budget from 2.3 per cent of GDP to 2.5 per cent, is an illustration of that trend.⁹⁴

94. See https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-defence-spending-reach-25-gdp-by-2027-pm-starmer-says-2025-02-25/. ↩

It is against that background and that trend that the Special Rapporteur calls for a recommitment to multilateralism. In the 26 poorest countries on the planet, only 9.7 per cent of the population enjoys even minimal social protection.⁹⁵ The main reason for such low coverage is insufficient fiscal space. While lack of political will, low administrative capacity and the weight of the informal sector are also important explanatory factors, financing remains key: if those countries benefited from higher levels of international support, rather than being punished by rating agencies and external creditors for investing in social protection, they would be more willing to make progress and they would build the necessary capacity to improve both the collection of domestic revenue and social spending. Can it be done?

95. ILO, World Social Protection Report 2024–2026, p. 53. ↩

The total additional spending required in low-income countries to ensure universal access to five key social protection guarantees (child allowances, disability benefits, maternity benefits, old age pensions and unemployment benefits), as well as providing essential healthcare, amounts to $308.5 billion per year in absolute terms.⁹⁶ That financing gap represents 52.3 per cent of the GDP of low-income countries, exceeding by four times their current government expenditure and a staggering 28 times their current social protection 90 See https://www.devex.com/news/eu-aid-to-least-developed-countries-is-trending-way-down-108620. 91 See https://www.devex.com/news/scoop-the-eu-aid-cuts-revealed-108390. 92 See https://www.devex.com/news/special-saturday-edition-eu-aid-s-annus-horribilis-108976. 93 See https://focus2030.org/La-France-revient-sur-ses-engagements-en-matiere-d-aide-publique-au (in French). 94 See https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-defence-spending-reach-25-gdp-by-2027-pm-starmer-says2025-02-25/. 95 ILO, World Social Protection Report 2024–2026, p. 53. 96 Umberto Cattaneo and others, Financing Gap For Universal Social Protection: Global, Regional and National Estimates and Strategies for Creating Fiscal Space, (2024), p. 16. GE.25-05904 spending.97 Without international support, low-income countries will simply not be able to make the investments needed.

96. Umberto Cattaneo and others, Financing Gap For Universal Social Protection: Global, Regional and National Estimates and Strategies for Creating Fiscal Space, (2024), p. 16. ↩

As underlined by the High Commissioner for Human Rights, given the historic responsibility of large emitters of greenhouse gases, the most advanced economies have a duty to support adaptation to climate change in the worst-affected countries.⁹⁸ That could be done by supporting the establishment of climate-responsive social protection floors. International solidarity is not a substitute for domestic reforms or increased domestic resource mobilization, but it does serve as a crucial enabler, creating the conditions necessary for successful efforts aimed at increasing domestic resource mobilization.

98. A/HRC/55/37, paras. 15–17. ↩

In his contribution to the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development, the Special Rapporteur made a number of proposals as to how the financing for social protection could be increased. Those proposals are summarized in an annex to the present report.

In addition, however, taking into account the crucial role of social protection in adaptation to climate change, climate finance could be directed towards financing social protection. Multilateral climate funds, including the Green Climate Fund, the Global Environment Facility, the Adaptation Fund and the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage, along with multilateral and bilateral development banks and climate finance partnerships, such as the Just Energy Transition Partnerships and the Global Shield against Climate Risks, have the potential to channel funding into social protection. The poverty, reforestation, energy, and climate change programme in Paraguay, the initiative to adapt agriculture to climate change in the Philippines, the programme for building resilient communities, wetlands, ecosystems and associated catchments programme in Uganda and the project linking climate adaptation and social protection through decentralized planning in Mozambique have all received funding from the Green Climate Fund and the Global Shield against Climate Risks has supported the expansion of social protection in response to drought in Malawi.

The potential of such synergies remains largely untapped. ILO recently deplored the fact that while social protection is essential to climate change mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage response, “only 20 out of 196 nationally determined contributions assign a role to social protection in climate action, and even fewer cite concrete actions for systems strengthening”.⁹⁹ The upcoming presentation of updated nationally determined contributions at the thirtieth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change later in 2025 is an opportunity for countries to embed social protection into climate action.

99. ILO, World Social Protection Report 2024–2026, p. 74. ↩

When adopting the Social Protection Floors Recommendation, 2012 (No. 202) and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda of the Third International Conference on Financing for Development, Governments pledged to support the efforts of low-income countries to establish social protection floors. To keep those pledges, a new window could be established, to ensure predictable funding to countries who present multi-year action plans for the expansion of social protection, including capacity-building in order to improve the mobilization of domestic resources. The provision of ad hoc support, on a year-by-year basis, will not do: in his past role as the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, the Special Rapporteur deplored the unpredictability of aid allocated year-by-year, which does not allow beneficiary countries to plan development.100 97 Ibid., p. 6. 98 A/HRC/55/37, paras. 15–17. 99 ILO, World Social Protection Report 2024–2026, p. 74. 100 A/HRC/10/5, para. 11. GE.25-05904

What is needed to complement adaptive social protection is a reinsurance mechanism that would support countries in overcoming shocks that increase demand for social protection at the same time as they reduce public revenue for the State. Uncertainty about possible future shocks to their economies is a major disincentive for poor countries to establish rights-based social protection programmes, since they know their fiscal resources may be strained as a result of adverse shocks brutally increasing the needs of the population.¹⁰¹

101. A/HRC/9/23, para. 44. ↩

The COVID-19 pandemic revived the consensus on the need to strengthen international solidarity in the service of financing social protection in order to support the efforts of poor countries to close the gaps in social protection and access to healthcare revealed by the crisis. The Special Rapporteur’s proposal for a global fund for social protection, detailed in an earlier report,¹⁰² were supported by global unions and by the Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors, a coalition of more than 100 unions and non-governmental organizations across the world. Governments and social partners also gave encouragement to the Special Rapporteur’s proposal at the International Labour Conference in June 2021, when they gave a mandate to the International Labour Organization to “explore options for mobilizing international financing for social protection” and “initiate and engage in discussions on concrete proposals for a new international financing mechanism, such as a Global Social Protection Fund, which could complement and support domestic resource mobilization efforts in order to achieve universal social protection”.¹⁰³

102. A/HRC/47/36. ↩
103. International Labour Conference, 109th session, Record of Proceedings, ILC.109/Record No. 7A, para. 21 (c). ↩

That mandate remains largely unfulfilled. Although ILO did commission one study on the proposal for a global fund for social protection,¹⁰⁴ it neither initiated discussions on concrete proposals for their implementation, nor did it engage in such discussions. However, in Our Common Agenda, the Secretary-General noted that a global fund for social protection could “support countries in increasing levels of funding devoted to social protection over time”. The proposal for the fund is now also discussed as part of the Global Accelerator on Jobs and Social Protection for Just Transitions, a vision launched by the Secretary-General in September 2021, which seeks, inter alia, to make social protection floors universal.

104. Nicola Yeates and others, A Global Fund for Social Protection: Lessons from the Diverse Experiences of Global Health, Agriculture and Climate Funds, ILO working paper No. 97 (2023). ↩

A new international financing mechanism in support of the efforts of poor countries to establish social protection floors would ensure access to a reliable and predictable source of funding for countries lacking the fiscal capacity to make progress, allowing such social protection floors to be designed as rights-based (in accordance with the Social Protection Floors Recommendation, 2012 (No. 202)), moving beyond ad hoc and limited cash transfer schemes and involving an enforceable commitment from Governments to their populations. Were such a tool to be created, countries would have a positive incentive to invest in social protection, whereas in the current context of high levels of indebtedness, countries making such investments are instead penalized by rating agencies and financial markets, since investing in social protection leads, in the short-term, to higher public deficits. Even more important in the context of the present report, such a tool would provide countries committing to protect their populations through social protection floors with an insurance against co-variate shocks, such as those caused by climate disasters, by increasing the level of international support in times of crisis, when demand for social protection increases at the same time that public revenue falls.

Contrary to a widely shared misperception, the global fund for social protection is not intended to create a new institution. Rather, it is an initiative that leverages and coordinates existing mechanisms and organizations to enhance support for country-led social protection systems. The Special Rapporteur has proposed that the governance of the fund should build on the existing Global Partnership for Universal Social Protection to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, rely on the experience of the ILO Global Flagship Programme on Building Social Protection Floors for Alland, for the administration of financial commitments, cooperate with the Multi-Partner Trust Fund Office. While such a reinsurance mechanism would build on existing institutions, it would also aim to increase the resources available in support of the establishment of social protection floors and create incentives for low-income countries to invest in social protection.

If financing through a global fund for social protection were made conditional on beneficiary countries investing more in social protection by mobilizing domestic resources, it could lead gradually to a virtuous cycle emerging, favouring the increased mobilization of domestic resources. It would also act as a financial safety net during economic, climate or health crises and accelerate progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, including Goal 1 on poverty reduction and Goal 3 on improved health outcomes. That would allow countries to move away from dependency on short-term, ad hoc aid of a humanitarian nature and gradually gain the fiscal space required to finance social protection without external support. Such an investment has potentially high returns: it leads to building human capital, has significant multiplier effects in the local economy and contributes to resilience in times of crisis. As the level of support provided by the fun would increase in times of crisis, for instance when climate-related disasters occurred, it is the necessary international complement to adaptive social protection.

Social protection is an essential tool in countering the impacts of the climate crisis and must take centre stage in the debate on climate change. To improve protection from climate change risks, social protection systems should be strengthened by enhancing their institutional, financial and operational capacities to provide adequate and comprehensive support to people in poverty affected by climate-related disasters. Entitling people to such enhanced protection will also maximize the impact of climate finance, ensuring it reaches those most affected by climate change.

While private insurance against climate risks has a potentially important role to play in protecting assets, it will only be viable provided that Governments address the insurability crisis and it cannot be a substitute for publicly-funded social protection systems that protect against the impact of climate disruptions on income security.

International solidarity should support the domestic efforts of developing countries, especially low-income countries, to establish social protection floors. The Special Rapporteur joins the global call to action launched by ILO and the Global Partnership for Universal Social Protection to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, advocating for a target of a minimum annual increase of 2 percentage points in indicator 1.3.1. of Goal 1, which measures effective coverage by at least one cash benefit.¹⁰⁵ As noted by the Secretary-General,¹⁰⁶ that would be consistent with the historic responsibility of industrialized countries as the largest emitters of greenhouse gases.

105. See https://www.social-protection.org/gimi/Media.action?id=20344. ↩
106. A/HRC/57/30, para. 58. ↩

The Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development, and the Second World Summit for Social Development provide unique opportunities to reiterate existing pledges on social protection floors. Both gatherings should make progress towards setting up a new tool, the global fund for social protection, that would enable the ILO Flagship Programme on Building Social Protection for All to channel international support to the establishment of rights-based social protection floors, through the predictable funding of multi-year action plans.

In a contribution to the Fourth International Conference for the Financing for Development (FfD4), the Special Rapporteur reviewed a range of options that could be explored to support the establishment of social protection floors in LICs.¹ He provides a brief summary here.

1. Financing Social Protection Floors: Contribution of the Special Rapporteur to FfD4 (30 June‒3 July 2025) ‒ Olivier De Schutter. ↩

Official development assistance

ODA could play a role, if donor countries met their pledges and allocated a significant portion of aid to social protection. In 2023, ODA from the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee countries reached a record $223.7 billion.² The average ODA contribution from high-income countries in 2023 was just 0.37% of gross national income (GNI), however, falling well short of the internationally agreed target of 0.7% of GNI.³ And only a small fraction of ODA goes to social protection: in 2023, DAC bilateral ODA allocated to social protection ($1,570 million) represented 1.44% of bilateral sector-allocable ODA ($108,818 million).⁴

2. Levels in 2023 – preliminary data, p. 1. ↩
3. Ibid. ↩
4. OECD Creditor Reporting System (2024). ↩

If donor countries were to meet the 0.7% of GNI target, nearly $200 billion in additional funds could be made available annually, increasing total ODA to $423.2 billion annually.⁵ And if, consistent with the Addis Ababa Action Agenda (reflecting commitments contained in both the Monterrey Consensus and the Doha Declaration on Financing for Development), rich countries dedicated 0.2% of GNI to ODA to support the LDCs, $120.9 billion would be directed to LICs ‒a substantial increase from the current $22.4 billion.⁶ Even a partial allocation of this amount to social protection ‒ such as 25% of total ODA, or $30.2 billion ‒could cover one tenth of the social protection financing gap in LICs.

5. OECD Data Explorer, DAC1: Flows by provider (ODA+OOF+Private), as at 10.01.2025. ↩
6. OECD Data explorer, CRS: Creditor Reporting System (flows), Low-income countries (World Bank), as at 10.01.2025. ↩

Donor fatigue, however, and competing priorities facing rich countries, make it unlikely that ODA will increase in the next few years. Other financing options should be explored.

Debt-for-social protection swaps

3.3 billion people live in countries where interest payments on debt exceeds spending on either education or health.⁷ In 2023, total debt servicing costs (i.e. the sum of principal repayments and interest paid on total long-term debt) for low- and middle-income countries reached a record of $1.2 trillion, more than double the amount recorded a decade ago.⁸ LICs alone spent approximately $13.1 billion on debt servicing, which represents 4.2% of the financing gap for social protection floors.⁹

7. A world of debt 2024 | UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD), p. 18. ↩
8. World Bank, International Debt Report 2024 (Washington, DC: 2024), p. xv. ↩
9. Data.worldbank.org, Debt service on external debt, total (TDS, current US$), as at 01.03.2025. ↩

Debt-for-social protection swaps offer a mechanism to reallocate resources from debt servicing to essential social services: creditors agree to cancel or restructure part of a debtor country’s debt, deducting the equivalent amount from their ODA budget, in exchange for a 1 Financing Social Protection Floors: Contribution of the Special Rapporteur to FfD4 (30 June‒3 July 2025) ‒ Olivier De Schutter. 2 Levels in 2023 – preliminary data, p. 1. 3 Ibid. 4 OECD Creditor Reporting System (2024). 5 OECD Data Explorer, DAC1: Flows by provider (ODA+OOF+Private), as at 10.01.2025. 6 OECD Data explorer, CRS: Creditor Reporting System (flows), Low-income countries (World Bank), as at 10.01.2025. 7 A world of debt 2024 | UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD), p. 18. 8 World Bank, International Debt Report 2024 (Washington, DC: 2024), p. xv. 9 Data.worldbank.org, Debt service on external debt, total (TDS, current US$), as at 01.03.2025. GE.25-05904 binding commitment from the debtor that freed-up resources will be directed toward social protection programmes.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) could issue new Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) based on need rather than quota, providing LICs with liquidity without increasing their debt burden.¹⁰ This would enable them to finance critical investments in social protection, healthcare, and economic recovery, particularly during crises.

10. Financing social protection requires changing the global financial architecture ‒ Jayati Ghosh, 2024, p. 3. ↩

The distribution of SDRs based on IMF member countries’ quotas, which are determined by the relative size of their economies, disproportionally favours wealthier nations. In the 2021 allocation of $650 billion to stabilise the global economy during the COVID-19 pandemic, only $21 billion (3.2%) went to LICs, despite their greater need.¹¹ The UN’s High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism has urged a fundamental review of this allocation mechanism.¹² In 2009, the Commission of Experts of the President of the United Nations General Assembly on Reforms of the International Monetary and Financial System proposed annual SDR emissions of $150–$300 billion equivalent to the reduction in global purchasing power resulting from reserve accumulations.¹³ More recently, the Prime Minister of Barbados has called for the annual issuance of 500 billion SDRs ($650 billion) to help finance the transition to renewable energy.¹⁴ Allocating $650 billion a year to countries according to population and need would allow LICs, despite comprising just 9% of the global population, to receive 27% of SDR allocations rather than the 3.2% allocated in 2021. This would represent approximately $175 billion, addressing half of their social protection financing gap.¹⁵

11. 2021 General SDR Allocation. ↩
12. High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism (HLAB), A Breakthrough for People and Planet: Effective and Inclusive Global Governance for Today and the Future (New York: United Nations University, 2023). ↩
13. A/CONF.214/CRP.1 (2009). ↩
14. Barbados’ Mottley says IMF must help finance the fight against climate change | Reuters. ↩
15. Bernadette O’Hare and Stephen Hall, from the Government Revenue and Development Estimations (GRADE) project at the Universities of St Andrews and Leicester. Social Protection in Low-Income Countries. Submission to the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, 28 November 2024, updated 14 January 2025 (unpublished). ↩

Still other innovative financing tools exist. A globally implemented financial transaction tax of 0.1% tax on the trading of stocks and bonds and a 0.01% tax on derivative transactions could yield $326.9 billion annually, equivalent to 0.43% of global GDP.¹⁶ While most of the revenue raised would be concentrated in high-income countries which have more active financial markets, allocating a share of 9% to LICs (in proportion to their share of the world population) could generate $29.4 billion, covering 9.5% of their social protection financing gap.

16. Pekanov and Schratzenstaller, A Global Financial Transaction Tax ‒ Theory, Practice and Potential Revenues (2019), p. 46. ↩

International transport benefits from significant tax exemptions despite its environmental impact: aviation and maritime transport account for 2% and 3% of global GHGs respectively. Decarbonizing these sectors through targeted levies could mitigate emissions, enforce the polluter-pays principle, and generate revenue for LICs. A Frequent Flyer Levy starting at $9 for a second flight and increasing to $177 for a twentieth within the same year, could raise $121 billion while shifting the tax burden to frequent travellers.¹⁷ Similarly, the International Maritime Organization is considering a global carbon levy for shipping. Pacific and Caribbean Small Island States propose a levy of $150 per tonne of CO2e: this could generate up to $127 billion annually between 2027 and 2030, with average revenues of $103 billion per year in the following decade.¹⁸

17. Xinyi Sola Zheng and Dan Rutherford, A global frequent flying levy: Estimated emissions reduction and revenue potential. International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) (Washington D.C., 2022). ↩
18. Enes Tunagur, IMO carbon levy at $150-$300 would result in least GDP impact on global economy, Lloyd’s List, July 17, 2024. Retrieved from https://www.lloydslist.com/LL1149935/Exclusive-IMO-carbon-levy-at-$150-$300-would-result-in-least-GDP-impact-on-global-economy. ↩

A fossil fuel extraction levy, such as the climate damages tax, imposes a fee on each unit of coal, oil, or gas extracted, calculated based on embedded CO2 emissions. Designed to start at $5 per tonne of CO2e and increase annually, it could generate $900 billion from OECD countries by 2030 and up to $3.5 trillion globally.¹⁹ Another approach, a windfall profits tax on excessive fossil fuel and financial sector earnings, could raise between $212 and $382 billion globally over two years.²⁰

19. Sindra Sharma and David Hillman, The Climate Damages Taw: A guide to what it is and how it works, Stamp Out Poverty (London: April 2024), p. 25. ↩
20. Oxfam and Action Aid, The Power of Windfalls: The potential of windfall profits taxes on top fossil fuel and financial companies (2024), p. 6. ↩

The International Carbon Price Floor, proposed by the IMF, establishes minimum carbon price thresholds of $75, $50, and $25 per tonne of CO2 for high-, middle-, and low-income countries, respectively, and could mobilize over $1.4 trillion annually by 2030²¹ ‒ equivalent to the total social protection financing gap in 133 low and middle-income countries.²² Allocating just 9% of this revenue (representing $126 billion) to LICs based on population share would cover 40.8% of their social protection financing gap.

21. G-20 Note on Alternative Options for Revenue Mobilization, June 2024, p. 24. ↩
22. Umberto Cattaneo et al., op. cit. p. 15. ↩

The key message is this: combined with the use of climate finance in the service of social protection (see paras. 46–48 of the main report), a range of financing options exist, that could support the establishment of social protection floors in low-income countries, where domestic resource mobilisation is still insufficient. International solidarity should be placed in the service of the fulfilment of the right to social security and encourage further domestic resource mobilisation. If governments are serious about fulfilling their pledge to make social protection floors universal, they should move away from forms of support that are short-term, ad hoc and essentially of a humanitarian nature. The FfD4 should lead to clear commitments to expand the fiscal space available to low-income countries to allow them to invest in the future, by establishing social protection floors covering all their populations.