Today, the World Data Lab, in partnership with the International Labour Organization (ILO), is proud to launch the Africa Social Protection Clock (ASPC), available at http://africasocialprotection.io/.
The ASPC monitors the progress of African countries working towards achieving 40% social protection coverage by 2025, as set out in the ILO’s Africa Regional Social Protection Strategy 2021-2025.
The ASPC provides “real-time” social protection coverage estimates for all of Africa till 2025. It forecasts three scenarios: a “business as usual” scenario, if progress in expanding social protection remains constant; a “towards 40% goal by 2025” scenario, which shows how much countries individually would need to increase their social protection coverage in order to meet the 40% regional goal; and a “Social protection stagnation scenario”, which examines the potential consequences for social protection if proactive measures are not implemented.
“While Africa is making progress, more work remains to realise the 40% coverage target. Currently, 285 million out of 1.4 billion people in Africa have access to some form of coverage. By 2025, Africa’s population will reach 1.5 billion with 311 million people receiving coverage in a business as usual scenario” Dr Wolfgang Fengler (World Data Lab CEO)
“Social protection remains an important policy lever to support the most vulnerable during times of economic shocks. There are lessons to be learnt from countries such as Mauritius, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, South Africa, Egypt, Carbo Verde and Morocco who are on track to achieve and exceed the 40% target by 2025,” Dr Reshma Sheoraj (VP World Data Lab)
For media inquiries, please contact:
Anne Mason
About World Data Lab:
World Data Lab (WDL) has a mission to create public goods that bring clarity to – and heighten the visibility of – some of the most complex challenges of our time, including the development of datasets and tools that track United Nations SDGs in real-time. To date, this includes tracking poverty, hunger, water scarcity, gender, health, and internet access in close cooperation with leading global organizations and governments (UNICEF, OECD, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and many more). By combining new data sources with groundbreaking modelling methods, WDL assists the public, governments, and other organizations in making data-driven decisions to solve the world’s biggest challenges. These tools are developed as part of our mission to democratize data and make it accessible and actionable for everyone. In short, making everyone count.
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