Welcome! This website has been developed by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) in cooperation with three other Regional Commissions of the United Nations namely: the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), and the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA). The aim of the Toolbox is to enhance the capacity of policymakers and planners for developing effective and coherent social protection policies and programmes.
What is the Toolbox?
The Social Protection Toolbox is a platform that provides support to policymakers and stakeholders for moving toward broader and more robust social protection systems.
Using multimedia and data visualization techniques, the Toolbox aims to present the argument for strengthening and broadening social protection in a user-friendly and interactive fashion. It provides users with a point of departure for navigating the complex – and at times fragmented – nature of social protection policymaking. The Toolbox utilizes a database of good practices and a network of social protection experts to facilitate South-South co-operation and the building of consensus in “moving forward” toward broader and more robust coverage.
What is our approach?
Social protection refers to a set of policies and programmes designed to reduce poverty, vulnerability and inequality. The UN takes a rights-based approach to social protection within the context of the Social Protection Floor (SPF) framework, which promotes universal access to essential social services and transfers along the life course. The Toolbox works within this framework presenting data in a way that encourages a forward momentum toward the provision of essential health care and income security for all children, working-age and older persons. The SPF framework is especially relevant for developing countries and is seen as a necessary first step in closing development gaps and building a comprehensive national social protection system.
What is unique about the Toolbox?
The Toolbox aims to cover existing gaps in the promotion and analysis of social protection. In doing so, the Toolbox provides a streamlined advocacy platform for knowledge sharing based firmly on practice and experience. Other databases available from the United Nations system and international organizations focus on technical assistance, financing and analysis of individual schemes. For instance, the International Labour Office’s (ILO) Global Extension of Social Security database provides good analysis of select schemes and information on financing. The International Social Security Association provides a wide-range of country profiles and documents for technical assistance. The toolbox has been designed not to overlap with these databases.
Good Practices
The Toolbox provides access to a database of over 100 good practices in social protection from developing countries, 57 in the Asia and the Pacific region. In keeping with the SPF framework, good practices illustrate a rights-based approach toward social services and income security along the life course. As such, the database consists of (1) good practices of constitutional/legal provisions that guarantee social protection entitlements as well as (2) good practices of social protection schemes currently in implementation that show potential to be used as building blocks for more comprehensive coverage. The schemes currently in implementation have been selected based on the percentage of the population covered (extent of coverage) and the actual amount of benefits received (level of coverage). These good practices highlight both targeted and more universal schemes and follow a format that highlights essential information in order to provide a basic understanding of a wide variety of schemes.
