INTERNATIONAL POLICY ANALYSIS The UN Social Protection Floor Initiative Turning the Tide at the ILO Conference 2011 MICHAEL CICHON| CHRISTINA BEHRENDT| VERONIKA WODSAK January 2011 n For a long time, the international community has failed to give prominence to the Human Right to social security. Many nation states seemed to hide behind the prin­ciples of progressive realization. While the quality of social security improved gradu­ally for many workers in the formal economy worldwide, a large number of workers in the informal economy had been left without social security coverage even in countries witnessing persistent economic growth. n The demonstration that a basic set of social security benefits is affordable, also for developing countries, first broke the spell that had beset the social security develop­ment debate. However, it took a global financial and economic crisis to push social security to the top of the international agenda, when social security systems were recognized as important economic stabilizers even by the G20. n The SPF must be evaluated in a development context: Without a social protection floor, many people will not reach a level of skills and productivity to enter the formal economy but will remain trapped in informality and low productivity. Investing in a basic level of social protection that triggers a virtuous cycle of improved productivity and employability will ensure the sustainability of statutory schemes by enabling more and more people to move into contributory systems. n It is critical to ensure that public social security systems include and are supported by all strata of the population in order to maintain and strengthen broad public support and national solidarity. Such broad national consensus will protect the necessary fiscal space and maintain pressure to assure the quality of provision. The opportunity to endorse the SPF as part of the ILO’s two-dimensional strategy for the extension of social protection on a global level will be at the 100th International Labor Confe­rence in June 2011.