The report titled ‘World Social Protection Report 2020- 22: Regional companion report for Asia and the Pacific’ was released by the International Labour Organization (ILO) on September 2, 2022.
Key points
- It is a companion to the ILO’s ‘World Social Protection Report 2021- 22’ that gives a regional overview of social protection in the Asia-Pacific region.
- Only 24.4 per cent of Indians, even less than Bangladesh (28.4 per cent), are under any sort of social protection benefit.
- Mongolia, New Zealand, Singapore, and Australia have 100 per cent social protection net, while in Myanmar and Cambodia, the number stands below 10 per cent.
- Owing to the relatively low investment in social protection, the amounts transferred under non-contributory benefits are usually too low to provide adequate protection.
- With contributory schemes typically limited to those working in the formal sector and non‑contributory schemes still mostly targeted at the poorest, India’s social security benefits are lower than the 5 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita ($2,277).
- However, the report appreciates India’s higher coverage rate achieved through the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee programme which offers a degree of protection to informal sector workers for up to 100 days
- Three out four workers in the Asia Pacific region are not protected in the event of illness or injury sustained at work.
- Countries with lower GDP per capita tend to have low levels of work injury coverage for example, Afghanistan, India, Nepal and Pakistan cover fewer than 5 per cent of their workers.
- As of 2020, only 46.9 per cent of the global population was effectively covered by at least one social protection benefit, while the remaining 53.1 per cent as many as 4.1 billion people were left wholly unprotected.
