- Background
Inequalities were widening in Asia and the Pacific with individual and household circumstances such as age, gender, location, income, education disability status among others intersecting in context-specific ways to leave certain groups behind. It was not surprising that current progress towards SDGs was not sufficient in the region. In fact, expected progress implied that SDGs would be achieved by 2062. In the face of the ongoing triple crisis, countries had to protect people in vulnerable situations, including older persons, women and girls, children, youth, persons with disabilities, persons affected by conflict, migrants, refugees, internally displaced persons, workers in the informal economy, people living in rural and remote areas and other people in vulnerable situations.
To accelerate progress toward 2030, the United Nations Sustainable Development Group recently introduced six transitions or investment pathways to deliver the SDGs as they had catalytic and multiplier effects across the SDGs. One of these six pathways related to jobs and social protection. Social Protection Floors Recommendation, 2012 (No. 202) and ILO Recommendation No. 205 on Employment and Decent Work for Peace and Resilience and the United Nations Secretary-General’s initiative on the Global Accelerator on Jobs and Social Protection for Just Transitions were among key frameworks offering guidance on social protection policies that leave no one behind.
Recent findings corroborated the strong link between access to social protection and overall trust and solidarity, as well as its importance for higher productivity levels and a green and just transition to more inclusive and prosperous societies in Asia and the Pacific. For social protection to fulfil its potential in Asia and the Pacific, the evidence-base of its impacts on fundamental rights and opportunities as well as the importance of designing inclusive schemes needed to be strengthened and communicated to governments.
To support governments in the Asia and the Pacific, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) was implementing a technical assistance project with a view to build technical capacity to analyse micro data with innovative methodologies. The project's ultimate objective was to help governments design and implement inclusive and evidence-based social protection policies and assess the potential impact of social protection schemes, especially on people furthest left behind in access to basic opportunities.
The project built on two user-friendly policy tools developed by ESCAP.
- The Leaving No One Behind (LNOB) Platform helped users understand how various circumstances intersect and create inequalities in access to basic opportunities covered by the Sustainable Development Goals. Building on empirical methodologies such as Classification and Regress Trees (CART) and the Dissimilarity index (D-index), it used Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) or Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) to generate LNOB evidence at national and subnational levels to identify groups left furthest behind and the circumstances they shared in 30 countries across Asia and the Pacific.
- The Social Protection Online Toolbox (SPOT) Simulator helped users design a mix of non-contributory social protection schemes and demonstrates the impact of hypothetical scenarios on poverty, inequality and consumption. The tool also projected the cost of such schemes. The results were obtained by using national representative household surveys such as Household Income and Expenditure Surveys (HIES) in 27 countries across Asia and the Pacific.
Building on these two tools, the project aimed to develop a new prognostic tool, SP2LNOB App, which would demonstrate the impact of extending social protection on access to basic services and opportunities in line with SDGs or national development indicators. Using this tool, governments could assess the potential impact social protection could have on leaving no one behind in a variety of thematic areas including nutrition, health, education and living standards, among others. In addition to offline policy experimentation, the new tool, if desired, would also provide an online extension to showcase the results to the public.
In this introductory workshop on SP2LNOB, ESCAP built capacity for its existing policy tools (i.e. LNOB Platform and SPOT Simulator) and then focused on the SP2LNOB App seeking feedback to optimize the tool and align with country-specific needs and preferences.
- Training Objectives
The primary objective of this introductory workshop was to introduce all three tools to representatives of target countries and strengthen their capacity to use LNOB and SPOT tool and raise awareness on the new tool under development to strengthen inclusive policymaking in the area of social protection. Such policies had the potential to reduce inequality of opportunity and vulnerability and accelerate the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, by making sure that those left behind are also included. The workshop also aimed to collect feedback from participants to guide the further development and localization of the new tool.
- Target Audience
The introductory workshop drew participation from technical officials and specialists from relevant ministries, departments and agencies in Cambodia and the Maldives.
- Organization and Participation