Social Justice with focus on Inequalities – Social Protection Floors for all, including Health

Social justice encompasses our Human Rights, including the right we all have to the fair division of resources, and to opportunities and participation: social security is a right enshrined in the Universal Declaration, governed by standards developed by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). This includes Recommendation 202 on social protection floors, which are a proven mechanism for poverty alleviation and prevention and are therefore encapsulated in Target 3 of the first Sustainable Development Goal, to End poverty in all its forms everywhere. 

The current global situation of extreme social, financial and environmental inequalities; where 1 in 8 billion are food insecure, where poverty is widespread and affects people disproportionately depending on where they live, their gender, ethnicity, and more, is one where social justice is severely lacking. This limits people’s opportunities to live and pursue creative, productive lives, and to be resilient in the face of personal or familial illness, disability, and wider disasters and crises.

Strong, equitable health systems are key to social protection: we saw how the COVID-19 pandemic affected socially excluded groups disproportionately across all countries, and our work on vaccine justice exposed the deep-rooted regional inequalities in access to essential life-saving vaccination and treatment.

DEMANDS FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE

• the call for a Global Fund for Social Protection, based on principles of solidarity, realising human rights, and accountability between citizen and state
• Universal Health Coverage (UHC) in every country, covering every person across the life course
• the speedier implementation of SDG 1 target 3: the Social Protection Floor – health services for all, and basic income security in childhood, maternity, old age and at times of disability