No fewer than 30 million new jobs are expected to be created worldwide according to statistics released by International Labour Organization (ILO) at the launch of 2017-2019 World Social Protection Report held in Abuja on Tuesday.
According to the report, only 45% of the global population estimated at over seven billion, are covered by at least one social protection benefit, leaving 55% or 4 billion are left unprotected.
Breakdown of those protected population shows that only 18% of African population; 39% of Asia and Pacific; 68% of Americans and 84% of Europe a d Central Asia are receiving at least one social protection benefit.
The report further stated that 1.3 billion of global children population remain uncovered; 83 million mothers with newborns do not receive maternity benefits; 15 million unemployed workers are not covered; 28% majority of persons with disabilities remain uncovered while 196 million older persons do not receive old age pensions across the globe.
In her presentation, Isabel Ortiz, Director ILO’s Social Protection Department, emphasized the need to extend coverage to informal sector to make it equitable and long term.
Ortiz who noted that social protection which started 100 year ago became brighter in 2015, expressed optimism that the social insurance will thrive in Africa in the nearest future.
While noting that some countries including Nigeria, Ghana, Indonesia among others have removed fuel subsidy which serves as social protection in those countries, she observed that Brazil has successfully introduced high tax on financial sector as part of measures to finance social protection for the citizens.
Ortiz also noted that 29 percent of the global population are covered by comprehensive social security systems while 71 percent or 5.2 billion people are not, or are partially protected.
She observed that out of the global rural population lacks health coverage as compared to 22 percent in the urban area.
She said that it was imperative for Africa to implement the social protection system in order to achieve decent work for all and to achieve Suitable Development Goal (SDG) target 1.3 on social protection for all.
On her part, Cynthia Samuel-Olonjuwon, ILO Assistant Director-General/Regional Director for Africa called for collaborative efforts to urgently develop the social protection system for Africa.
In the bid to achieve this, Samuel-Olonjuwon tasked Nigeria and African governments to invest in data generation for effective policy formulation, monitoring, development of appropriate programme.
While expressing concern over the current situation, the ILO director harped on the need to embark on timely and aggressive data generation in the bid to make remarkable progress in all ramifications.
“Despite significant progress in the extension of social protection coverage in Africa, only 17.8 percent of the population receive at least one form of social protection.
“There is glaring finding that the right to health is not yet a reality in many parts of the world. This is especially in rural areas where 56 percent of the population lack health coverage as compared to 22 percent in urban areas.
“There is also a stark reality that Africa still has a huge deficit, as an estimated 10 million health workers are needed to achieve universal health coverage and ensure human security.
“This shortfall of seven million skilled health workers in rural areas as well as high deficits in per capita health spending add to these rural inequalities,” she said.
She therefore said, undeniably access to health care remained one of the most pressing challenges for social protection in Africa.
The ILO boss added that there were about 1.3 billion children globally that are not covered by the social protection system in Africa and Asian.
“In this connection, there is great need to extend social protection schemes to children and families in order to critically realise children’s right, ‘’she said.
On his part, Stephen Ocheni, Minister of State for Labour and Employment said Nigeria has developed a National Policy on Social Protection that has it timeline from 2015 to 2018.
Ocheni noted that Nigeria was yet to commence full implementation of the social protection policy, but would ensure it implementation in the country.
“There is no reason why we in Nigeria, or Africa or the world at large should be lagging behind in universal social protection enhancement.
“I want to assure the ILO that government is fully committed and will do everything within our means to collaborate with relevant organisations to achieve social protection for our citizens,” he said.
He also said the launching of the World Social Protection Report would no doubt unveil the gaps and limitations in the social protection coverage, efforts and commitments made to implement appropriate coverage.
KEHINDE AKINTOLA, Abuja
