Resident Coordinator's remarks at the NESDC Social Protection Working Meeting

Let me begin by thanking you Khun Danucha and your team for meeting with us today. Your consultation in this capacity is invaluable to support the Social Protection System for All, on which we together have made so much progress recently.

I want to use this opportunity to bring you rapidly up to speed on the UN Joint Programme for Social Protection, the Diagnostic Review and key findings, and the next steps that the UN is taking in partnership with Government.

Four UN agencies, including the ILO, IOM, UNICEF, and UN Women, have been working closely with Government, especially the MSDHS as well as the Ministries of Finance, Labour and Public Health to lead on this initiative. As you know, NESDC has also been an essential partner to this process.

One of the Joint Programme’s main work areas has been the development of the comprehensive Diagnostic Review, which presents in-depth analysis of key aspects of the Social Protection system in Thailand.

The Review has generated six technical reports analyzing social protection as it relates to children, the working-age population, the elderly, migrants, and women.

It also includes a comprehensive mapping of vulnerable populations and financial dimensions to support Government to make the social protection system a tool for sustainable growth in Thailand.

We are following up with a visioning exercise to assess policy options, hand in hand with key Government bodies including yourself in April.

Our close collaboration with Government, especially focusing on integration of the multiple schemes, will enable us to further develop social protection that is fit for purpose in the post-pandemic world.

We are informed by the NESDC’s position in this regard, which sees social protection not just as a means to address residual poverty, but fundamentally as a policy tool to support sustainable and resilient growth.

Adequate, comprehensive, and sustainable social protection sits as a key milestone in the draft 13th NESDP, particularly on promoting a more integrated approach.

As we discuss policy options, we want to work very closely with you and your team to ensure our thinking is aligned across these key areas.

Let me take this opportunity to share 5 headline findings that need to be addressed:

• We have also learned that up to 71% of the working population is not covered by any form of social protection. The hardest hit are the 12.6 million people working in agriculture.
• Registered migrant workers have a good social security coverage; however, their families still have challenges in accessing benefits.
• For domestic workers, the brief suggests that regulations should be modified for their employers to contribute to social security benefits, enhancing coverage to make the system equitable.
• The country has a very high coverage for the Old Age Allowance, however there may be a case to enhance the benefits over the coming years. The diagnostic studies suggest that nearly 50% of new mothers do not have access to maternity benefits.
• From the paper on children, we understand that a little over half of the children between 0 to 5 years did not receive cash support, as the programme is not universal.

This is the basis of evidence-based policy-making that we need going forward.

Given the number of ministries involved in implementation, the Social Protection system requires a strong coordination function, and we believe that the NESDC can play a pivotal role in this regard.

It would be great to hear more from you about your key priorities and how our work, within and beyond this Joint Programme, can contribute.

We would also like to invite your team to be part of the series of dialogues in the coming months on visioning and framing policy options that are financially sustainable.

The UN deeply appreciates the strength of this partnership and the progress we have made together. Thank you, and I look forward to hearing your feedback.