Four billion people around the world are still without any form of social protection: Munir Akram

NEW YORK, Jan 17 (SABAH): “I believe the (Global Social Protection Knowledge) platform will provide an opportunity to build a database, which would be instrumental in building resilience to protect ourselves and our future generations from any future catastrophe”: said Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the United Nations Munir Akram during a hybrid Networking Event on ‘Declaration on Establishing a Global Social Protection Knowledge Platform’ was held in Dubai Expo, Pakistan Pavilion on Monday.

This event was co-hosted by Pakistan Mission to the UN, Turkish Mission to the UN, Costa Rica Mission to the UN, and Nigerian Mission to the UN, and Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Welcome remarks were made by Ambassador Munir Akram, Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the UN. In his opening remarks, Ambassador Munir Akram said that the pandemic has impacted vulnerable individuals worldwide, with the average incomes of people in the bottom 40 percent of the global income distribution estimated to be 6.7 percent lower than pre-pandemic projections in 2021. While emphasizing the need of a social protection mechanism, he said that: “Countries all over the world injected economic stimulus packages to care for their poor and needy citizens”. “With robust social protection systems have been able to provide lifeline to their people by providing cash support”, he said.

“Social protection systems have thus demonstrated their value during the COVID-19 pandemic, saving lives and backstopping economies at large”, he added. “It is obvious that without the surge in State-provided social protection, economic damage could have been far worse”: he said. “We must not lose this momentum”: Ambassador Munir Akram insisted. “4 billion people around the world are still without any form of social protection. Therefore, we need to redouble our efforts to achieve social protection for all by 2030”: he said. “A new era for social protection systems would be a foundation for inclusive and sustainable societies and for the achieving our overarching objectives of “leaving no one behind” and “eradicating extreme poverty””: he said further. He also insisted on the need to galvanize all these examples in order to maximize their benefits “through peer learning and knowledge sharing”.

Senator Dr. Sania Nishtar, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister of Pakistan on Poverty Alleviation and Social Protection delivered a keynote speech. This networking event was designed to raise awareness of and promote the establishment of a platform involving member states, who, recognizing that the pandemic has demonstrated the importance of social protection systems for building resilience, intend to accelerate sharing of global social protection knowledge and practices by forming an interactive Global Community of Practice that would allow country practitioners to directly connect, exchange, and learn from each other’s experiences.