{"id":933,"date":"2019-06-29T14:29:42","date_gmt":"2019-06-29T10:29:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/134.0.207.102\/~ohrc\/english\/?p=933"},"modified":"2026-05-25T18:13:56","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T07:13:56","slug":"un-report-more-than-half-the-worlds-population-lacks-access-to-health-care-and-social-security","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ohrc.om\/en\/un-report-more-than-half-the-worlds-population-lacks-access-to-health-care-and-social-security\/","title":{"rendered":"UN report: More than half the world’s population lacks access to health care and social security"},"content":{"rendered":"More than half of the world\u2019s population lacks access to essential health care and just 29 per cent have comprehensive social security coverage, according to a new International Labour Organization (ILO) report on the implementation of social protection in more than 100 countries.\n\nThe findings come in the General Survey 2019, compiled by the ILO Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations (CEACR). The Survey (published under the title Universal social protection for human dignity, social justice and sustainable development) focuses on the ILO\u2019s Social Protection Floors Recommendation, 2012 (No. 202) , which calls for basic income security and essential healthcare guarantees from childhood to old age.\n\nIt also aims to encourage greater levels of protection for as many people as possible, as soon as possible. Globally, only 68 per cent of persons of retirement age receive some form of pension, and in many low-income countries this drops to just 20 per cent. Fewer than 60 per cent of countries reported that they had schemes or benefits to ensure income security for children.\n\n\u201cSocial protection is proven to be good for societies and economies. This human right clearly has strong buy-in from countries, employers and workers across the world,\u201d said Emmanuelle St-Pierre Guilbault, Legal Specialist at the ILO\u2019s International Labour Standards Department. \u201cThis is a \u2018must\u2019 to tackle the broad and rising inequality we see today and foster stability.\u201d\n\n\u201cSocial protection is proven to be good for societies and economies. The ILO stands ready to help countries address any remaining obstacles on the road to achieving sufficient social protection for all. ”\n\nEmmanuelle St-Pierre Guilbault, Legal Specialist at the ILO\u2019s International Labour Standards Department\n\n\u201cThe ILO stands ready to help countries address any remaining obstacles, including the major issue of financing, on the road to achieving sufficient social protection for all,\u201d she added.\n\nIt found that while universal health coverage has been achieved in many high- and middle-income countries, in many countries the population only has access to certain components of health care.\n\nThe main deficits in essential health care access relate to the underfunding of health protection, shortages of health workers and high rates of out-of-pocket payments. This results in an increased risk of impoverishment and financial hardship, which is found in all regions of the world.\n\nThe report says that more effort is needed to establish universal health coverage in both law and practice, including the reallocation of budgets and an increase in the number of health workers.\n\nThe report recommends that countries set clear objectives, with precise time frames, to extend adequate social protection for all, covering basic needs. Such policies should be shaped through inclusive and effective dialogue with workers\u2019 and employers\u2019 organisations, as well as other stakeholders.\n\nThe issue of universal social protection coverage is also key for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals , notably those targets covering the ending of poverty and inequality, health and well-being, decent work, economic growth, peace, justice and strong institutions.\n\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than half of the world\u2019s population lacks access to essential health care and just 29 per cent have comprehensive social security coverage, according to a new International Labour Organization (ILO) report on the implementation of social protection in more…","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":936,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ohrc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ohrc.om\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ohrc.om\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ohrc.om\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ohrc.om\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ohrc.om\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=933"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ohrc.om\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":989750,"href":"https:\/\/ohrc.om\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933\/revisions\/989750"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ohrc.om\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ohrc.om\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ohrc.om\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ohrc.om\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}