Universal, comprehensive, sustainable and resilient social protection systems play a fundamental role in overcoming poverty, reducing inequalities and responding to situations of crisis, emergencies and risks. With the pandemic, a unique opportunity has opened up to rethink the strategic place that social protection and social and labor inclusion policies have in moving towards welfare states and guaranteeing fundamental rights. As has been demonstrated through the differentiated impacts of the pandemic in the countries, the level of consolidation of social protection systems has been decisive in their ability to provide adequate protection to their citizens against emergencies and risks and prevent considerable deterioration. in their levels of well-being. It is urgent to advance in its strengthening to face contexts with growing uncertainty and recurring crises, and consolidate the social rights of people. In particular, it is essential that these systems consider in their design the challenges linked to a series of ongoing risks and transformations, including those of a demographic nature, transformations in the labor market, the increasing occurrence of disasters and the environmental crisis.
The health crisis has also revealed the characteristics of the matrix of social inequality and the gaps in the social protection system in Honduras and in the rest of the region, exacerbating differences in income, exercise of rights and well-being in countries. The region is going through a protracted social crisis as a result of the pandemic and has shown an upward trend in extreme poverty and income inequality. The COVID-19 pandemic crisis meant a generalized impoverishment of a large part of the population of Latin America, which translated into downward mobility in socioeconomic strata (ECLAC, 2022). These inequalities also translate into unequal access to social protection and intersect with gender inequalities, those linked to the life cycle, ethnic-racial, territorial gaps and those faced by people with disabilities and migrants. These inequalities deepen gaps in access and sufficiency to the benefits of social protection systems that are very significant and prevent providing timely protection against crises and risks. For example, in 2018, 72% of households with children and adolescents in Honduras would have lacked access to social protection in some way, a percentage considerably higher than the regional average (33%), while in 2019, only 17.1% of the employed population would have contributed to the pension system, and only 9.8% of people aged 65 and over would have received a pension (ECLAC, 2021).
The region has an opportunity to bet on the reduction of social inequality through universal social protection policies that are sensitive to differences, consolidating a social institutional framework capable of generating the conditions for the design and implementation of policies that have an impact positive in this dynamic.
In this context, the workshop will seek to address the situation of social protection policies in Honduras and the opportunities to move towards a universal, comprehensive, sustainable and resilient social protection system in the country, within the framework of the current efforts to reformulate the social institutionality. Likewise, it will be aimed at jointly identifying key elements for its strengthening in response to a renewed matrix of social risks, which include disasters and adverse climatic phenomena and demographic transition, among others.
This meeting aims to provide a space for reflection on the main challenges to move towards universal, comprehensive, sustainable and resilient social protection systems within the framework of a welfare state in Honduras that protects the rights and well-being of people at a time in which the risk matrix is being reconfigured and is marked by high levels of uncertainty. Within the framework of the social institutional reform process in Honduras, this workshop seeks to contribute to the development of technical capacities of SEDESOL officials, as well as other social sector institutions, on social protection policies and policies for reduction of inequalities.
The meeting is part of the activities of the ECLAC-BMZ/giz Project “Transformative reactivation: overcoming the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in Latin America and the Caribbean” and in the framework of an ECLAC technical assistance process to the Ministry of Social Development of Honduras.
