1. Global Social Floor: a Universal Social Pension Silvia Stefanoni Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Programmes HelpAge International

2. Social security: a right and a public service  Universal Declaration of Human Rights:  Art 22: Everyone …… has a right to social security  Art 25: Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for health and well- being of himself and his family  Art 25: …and the right to security in the event of….old age

3. Poverty reduction in OECD countries % of Population

4. Challenging the development paradigm  Little success in reaching MDG 1 – income poverty and hunger  In a market economy, families need cash to live  Development practitioners – and governments – promote work (eg. livelihoods programmes; micro-credit)  But, many cannot work or get enough income  Global social floor provides a means of achieving MDG 1 through provision of comprehensive social security to complement work

5. Social Security – an essential public service  Four essential public services:  Health  Education  Safe water and sanitation  Social security  A system of regular and predictable cash transfers aimed at tackling poverty and promoting economic growth

6. Coverage of contributory pensions

7. Coverage of social pensions

8. Impact of social pensions on poverty in South Africa 96% 54% 21% 98% 71% 32% 0%20%40%60%80%100% Households only with older people Households including older people All households Poverty gap reductionDestitution gap reduction

9. Impact of social pension in Mauritius

10. Investment in children  Nutrition:  Pensions associated with a 3-4cm increase in height among children in South Africa  Education:  South Africa pension led to 8% increase in enrolment among poorest 20% of children  Similar impact in Brazil among girls aged 12- 14

11. Why universal social pensions?  Poverty targeting is difficult in developed countries – large inclusion and exclusion errors  Administratively more complicated and expensive  In developing countries, we do not know how to target – therefore, errors will be much greater  Benefits often captured by the better-off (eg. India and Bangladesh)  Community targeting causes discord in communities  Targeted social pensions will be denounced as corrupt  Poverty targeting will create disincentives to save and contribute to other pension schemes  Greater political acceptability for universal benefits  Amartya Sen: “A benefit for the poor is a poor benefit”

12. World Bank model of pension system Social Pensions Rich Poor

13. Model of the pension system RichPoor

15. Social pensions are part of a broader package  We need to look at the whole life cycle and associated vulnerabilities  Social pensions need to complement child benefits, disability benefits, support for the unemployed and free access to health services  Politically, however, social pensions are likely to be the easiest to introduce  Example of southern Africa – initial political support for social pensions  Happens where governments have more meaningful accountability to citizens  Where governments are accountable to donors, there is a preference for targeted social assistance programmes (eg. Zambia, Malawi, Uganda, Kyrgyzstan) which are driven by northern consultants  Global Social Floor need to challenge this approach and advocate for universal approaches