Investing in inclusion: Building decent work and social protection for all

South Africa has centred its 2025 G20 presidency on ‘Solidarity, Equality, Sustainability’. Two of the many meaningful social justice contributions that the leaders are poised to offer are reducing the share of youth aged 15 to 29 who are not in education, employment or training (often referred to as NEET), and investing in robust social protection systems.

First, the G20’s commitment to guiding young people into decent work has been reinforced. Between 2014 and 2024, NEET rates declined from 20% to 17.6%. This progress is significant. But in several G20 countries, NEET rates remain well above the median. Moreover, in all but three countries, young women are more likely to be NEET than young men, with an average gap of 8.6 percentage points. Also, far more young NEETs are inactive (outside the labour force, 12.3% in 2024) than unemployed (actively seeking employment, 5.3% in 2024). Reducing NEET rates in all G20 countries entails reaching those who face the deepest exclusions, including the millions of young women disadvantaged by social norms and inequitably distributed care responsibilities. 

Building a foundation for resilient societies

The G20 labour and employment ministers in July recognised the significance of the NEET challenge. Their declaration built on the foundation of the 2015 G20 Antalya Summit goals to reduce NEET rates by 15% by 2025 by adopting the Nelson Mandela Bay Youth Target to reduce 2024 NEET rates by a further 5% by 2030. The declaration emphasises the need to support disadvantaged youth, including young women and youth with disabilities.

Recent assessments show the power of increasing the operationalisation of national youth employment strategies, confirming that 53% of G20 policies on education and skills development influence NEET outcomes. The supply- and demand-side policies targeting youth employment should be strengthened, through economic policies that boost job creation, scale up active labour market measures, implement longer-term activation programmes and strengthen labour market institutions to improve job quality. 

Second, extending social protection constitutes an essential investment in today’s youth and tomorrow’s societies. The returns are both social and economic. The social returns apply across life cycle risks, including illness or work-related injury. As people live, work, grow and age, social protection helps unemployed workers reskill and find new jobs and older persons to retire in dignity. Maternity, parental, child and family benefits assist workers with family responsibilities to reconcile employment and care responsibilities. Together they build human capabilities and promote health and well-being.

Economic returns include enabling enterprises, especially micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, to navigate business cycles and structural transformations. For example, during the pandemic, wage subsidies, emergency sick leave benefits and unemployment benefits enabled many businesses to retain workers, preventing mass layoffs. Social protection systems are proven economic and social stabilisers for
counter-cyclical macroeconomic effects.

Social protection is key

There is persistent, substantial and asymmetrical underinvestment in social protection. Currently, high-income
countries allocate 16.2% of gross domestic product to social protection, excluding health care, and low- and
middle-income countries invest only 4.2%.  In 2023, 47.6% of the global population – 3.8 billion people, predominantly in the Global South – lacked any form of social protection. Over 50% of the world’s population lacked essential health
services coverage and 2 billion people suffered financial hardship–sometimes catastrophic–to access health care. Given the adverse impacts on human health that include heat stress and vector- and water-borne diseases, universal access without financial hardship has become critical. 

According to 2024 International Labour Organization calculations, an additional average investment of 3.3% of GDP in low- and middle-income countries is required to ensure a social protection floor. To take a regional example, 17.6% of the GDP is required in the African continent. It is urgent to create fiscal space for social investments. 

The ILO welcomes the G20 Development Working Group’s call to action ‘to join a transformative agenda to respect, protect, and promote the commitment to universal social protection’, and endorsement of the Fourth Financing for Development Conference’s Compromiso de Sevilla, which calls for countries to extend social protection coverage by at least two percentage points per year. The target is not aspirational: ILO data show that between 2015 and 2023, 42 countries representing 50% of the global population met that target. To achieve the goal, we must recognise that domestic resource mobilisation is not an exclusively national matter. The G20 DWG calls for an ‘enhancement of global cooperation on social protection financing and technical engagements’.  

Through joint programmes and partnerships that foster social protection and guide youth into decent work – from the United Nations Global Accelerator on Jobs and Social Protection for Just Transitions to the Global Initiative on Decent Jobs for Youth and the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty – the ILO stands ready to accompany G20 members to cultivate social justice in the urgent, pragmatic and purposeful manner necessary to earn trust and
sow peace.