Social Protection systems for women and girls living in crisis contexts

Dear all,

On this International Women Day, let us advocate for more investments in gender-sensitive social protection systems, in particular for women and girls living in crisis contexts.

Social protection is a human right which many women and girls are still denied. Compared to men, they are more likely to lose their income and to fall into poverty. A global snapshot on World Employment and Social Outlook: Trends for Women 2018 released today by the ILO warns against significant gender gaps in labour force participation, wages and social protection. Women are still overrepresented in informal employment in developing countries, and continue to face labour market barriers when it comes to accessing management positions.

Social protection is a powerful tool to reduce gender inequality, reduce poverty and build peaceful societies. The contribution of social protection to gender equality is recognized in particular with regard to addressing the gendered division of unpaid care and household work, which is one of the root causes of gender inequalities in opportunities and outcomes. A few examples across the ILO’s World Social Protection Report 2017-2019 illustrate policies promoting women empowerment.

There has been increased attention to the promotion of gender equality and women’s empowerment in social protection policy and programming, as well as in emergency response programming – see, for instance, studies on gender dynamics within cash transfer programmes, ODI work on applying a gender analysis to the extension of social insurance to informal workers, and the recent CaLP symposium on “Gender and Cash Based Assistance in Humanitarian Action”.

Building on these efforts, we need to pay more attention to the issue of gender equality and women/girls’ empowerment in debates, policy and programming around the use of social protection systems and approaches to respond to crises.

Ahead of the European Development Days (5-6 June 2018, Brussels) on “Women and Girls at the Forefront of Sustainable Development: protect, empower, invest”, it will be great to hear experiences from community members on applying a gender analysis to shock-sensitive social protection. We also invited members of the Socialprotection.org community to discuss their experiences, thus we invite you to stay tuned in both communities of practice!  

Join us!

Best regards,

Zena Mouawad

On behalf of the EU Guidance Package on Social Protection across the Humanitarian-development Nexus