The Second World Summit for Social Development in Doha marks a pivotal moment in the global commitment to social justice. Adopted in November 2025, the Doha Political Declaration reaffirms the international community's resolve to address profound social challenges: poverty, unemployment, and social exclusion. With nearly 4 billion people lacking access to any form of social protection and millions working in poverty-wage jobs, the Summit's call to action could not be more urgent.
Translating these commitments into tangible outcomes requires strategic investment and coordinated action. Since its launch by the UN Secretary-General in September 2021, the Global Accelerator on Jobs and Social Protection for Just Transitions has emerged as the UN system's flagship initiative to fast-track job-rich recovery and just transitions toward more sustainable and inclusive economies. The UN Joint SDG Fund's investment in this initiative demonstrates how pooled financing, coordinated technical support, and country-led solutions can catalyze transformative change.
The Widening Social Protection Gap: A Crisis Exposed by COVID-19
The ILO's World Social Protection Report 2024-26 reveals that while progress has been made with coverage reaching 52.4 percent in 2023 compared to 42.8 percent in 2015, this milestone masks a sobering reality. For the first time, more than half the world's population enjoys some form of social protection, yet 3.8 billion people remain entirely unprotected. Stark disparities persist: high-income countries achieved 85.9 percent coverage while low-income countries reached only 9.7 percent, and Africa's coverage improved marginally from 15.2 percent to just 19.1 percent.
Figure 1: Social Protection Coverage by Region and Population Group (2015 vs 2023)
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the fragility of existing systems. The financing gap for achieving universal social protection increased by approximately 30 percent during the crisis—a shocking reversal demonstrating how quickly hard-won gains can be eroded by global shocks. This serves as a sobering reminder as we confront the mounting climate crisis.
The consequences extend beyond individual hardship. During the pandemic, inadequate sickness benefit coverage forced people to work while ill, increasing infection risks. Related income losses pushed workers and families into poverty with lasting impacts. The numbers reveal the scale of vulnerability: 165 million older persons lack pension coverage, 157 million unemployed have no benefits, and 146 million persons with severe disabilities receive no support. Each gap represents human vulnerability that undermines social cohesion and economic resilience.
The Power of Pooled Funding for Integrated Solutions
Addressing interconnected social challenges requires breaking down traditional policy silos. The Joint SDG Fund's model of pooled, flexible financing enables precisely the kind of systems-level, multi-sectoral responses called for in the Doha Declaration as "bold and effective social policies that are woven into a whole-of-government, whole-of-society, people-centred and integrated approaches."
Since 2019, the Joint SDG Fund has committed over $380 million and catalyzed $6.6 billion in additional resources, reaching over 200 million people across 90 countries. Every dollar invested has mobilized $19 more, demonstrating the catalytic power of pooled financing combined with strategic partnership. For social development challenges spanning multiple sectors, from social protection and employment to health, education, and digital transformation, pooled funds represent the UN's most effective mechanism for delivering coherent, integrated solutions at scale.
The Fund's investment in the Global Accelerator on Jobs and Social Protection for Just Transitions exemplifies this approach. To date, 45 joint programmes have been approved in 34 countries with a total budget of $25 million from the Fund and $23 million in co-funding. These investments target the interconnected challenges highlighted in Doha: extending social protection to over 4 billion currently excluded people, creating decent jobs for 200 million unemployed, and supporting transitions in energy, digital, agriculture, and food systems.
UN Resident Coordinators: Driving Coherence and National Ownership
The Doha Declaration emphasizes that social development solutions must be country-driven and locally owned, with strengthened national ownership and consensus building. This principle is embedded in the Joint SDG Fund's operational model, where UN Resident Coordinators lead strategic, whole-of-UN responses aligned with Cooperation Frameworks and national development priorities.
Resident Coordinator leadership ensures quality programming, strategic alignment with national development strategies, and engagement by the best-placed UN entities. This model translates UN reform into practice, delivering coherent social development results. Seven UN entities, including ILO, FAO, UNDP, UNICEF, UN Women, and WFP, collaborate under Resident Coordinator guidance, working closely with the Global Accelerator Technical Support Facility to provide integrated technical assistance throughout the joint programme cycle.
Transforming Policy and Systems at Scale
The Doha Declaration calls for countries to "strengthen social protection systems and reinforce investment in measures, including social protection floors." The Joint SDG Fund's High Impact Track programmes in six pathfinder countries, namely Albania, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malawi, Namibia, and Uzbekistan, are delivering exactly this transformation.
Cambodia is advancing its Graduation-Based Social Protection programme with $2.35 million allocated from the national budget, integrating consumption support and training to transition 200,000 households to sustainable livelihoods. A cost-efficiency review of public expenditure initiated a Commune/Sangkat Budget Monitoring Application that unlocked $20 million in local budgets for social protection programmes.
Albania's joint programme has catalyzed reforms in long-term care and social insurance, including gender-responsive scenarios for a Universal Child Benefit and new care models in six municipalities. Social insurance is being extended to seasonal tourism workers while integrated service delivery for families on economic aid is scaled up.
Indonesia launched its Global Accelerator Roadmap aligned with national priorities, finalized mapping of national registries to support integrated digital platforms for skills development, and established a Sector Skills Council for tourism. The programme embedded analytics for disaster response and gender equity into national digital platforms.
Namibia supported finalization of its third National Employment Policy, co-designed strategies for transitioning informal workers to formality, and established a technical working group to lead pension reform extending social protection to workers in biomass and agriculture sectors. A Labour Market Information System is being established alongside thematic analysis of census data to inform employment strategies.
Creating Decent Jobs and Skills for Just Transitions
The Doha Declaration emphasizes that "poverty eradication, promotion of full and productive employment and decent work for all, and social integration are interrelated and mutually reinforcing." Global Accelerator joint programmes demonstrate this integration through concrete interventions linking skills development to emerging opportunities in green, care, and digital economies.
Malawi is capacitating government officials in employment impact assessments and developing harmonized horticulture curricula, with 200 youth apprenticeships created across agriculture value chains. The programme revised the National Action Plan for Women's Economic Empowerment and partnered with the banking sector to enable 1,000 women entrepreneurs to access tailored financial products.
Uzbekistan's programme exemplifies systemic transformation by addressing informal employment and extending social protection to vulnerable groups. The Government has adopted a national roadmap focusing on formalization, adequate social protection benefits and coverage, inclusion, and transitions to a green and digital economy. Driving legal and policy reforms to formalize 300,000 informal workers, especially in the care and construction sectors, the joint programme in Uzbekistan is expected to extend legal social insurance to 300,000 people and provide social assistance to 720,000 low-income individuals.
Unlocking Finance at Scale
Beyond delivering direct programme results, the Joint SDG Fund demonstrates a powerful multiplier effect—proving that well-designed pooled funds serve as catalytic instruments that unlock substantially larger investments for social development. This financing model directly responds to the Doha Declaration's call for "mobilizing additional finance, both public and private" and "ensuring sustainable and equitable financing for social protection systems."
National health financing reforms illustrate how seed capital generates systemic change. Cambodia pooled resources from multiple insurance schemes and introduced sustainable funding mechanisms for universal healthcare. Such transformations extend far beyond initial investments, creating sustainable financing architectures that endure.
Across the Global Accelerator portfolio, this catalytic approach is projected to benefit at least 16 million people through upgraded social protection programmes, decent employment policies and training, and job creation in agriculture, entrepreneurship, and health care. Critically, these programmes are leveraging at least $170 million in additional resources, thereby demonstrating how strategic seed funding from pooled mechanisms can mobilize the scale of investment needed to achieve universal social protection and decent work for all.
The Multi-Stakeholder Engagement to Implement the UN Global Accelerator (M-GA)
The Multistakeholder Engagement to Implement the Global Accelerator on Jobs and Social Protection for Just Transitions and the World Bank Social Protection and Jobs Compass (M-GA) is a partnership between the United Nations and the World Bank to accelerate progress to achieve universal social protection and create decent and productive employment. This joint initiative was initiated in 2023 with the support of the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development aiming to support countries to develop integrated and well-coordinated national employment and social protection programmes and policies. The model brings together the World Bank and the UN to deliver on social protection priorities at country level, thereby promoting UN-IFI collaboration.
To date, 43 M-GA programmes have been approved, focusing on building national capacity for identifying binding constraints and entry points for investment, developing integrated employment and social protection programmes and policies, and mobilizing domestic and international resources to create decent jobs and expand social protection.
For example, Cabo Verde's programme is eradicating extreme poverty through economic inclusion, enhancing skills for decent work opportunities particularly for women and youth not in employment, education, or training, and supporting micro-businesses in rural areas to transition to formality. The initiative leverages a new tourism tax to fund social protection, aligning fiscal policy with SDG goals. Between 2015 and 2022, Cabo Verde halved its extreme poverty rate from 22.6 percent to 11.1 percent and increased social protection coverage from 43.6 percent to 51.4 percent, demonstrating the catalytic impact of coordinated policy and investment.
Colombia's UN-World Bank collaboration enhances use of Universal Income Registry data in policymaking for social protection and decent employment, identifying and reducing access barriers and exclusion errors through analytical and operational tools.
Nepal's programme improves coordination and capacity of stakeholders to accelerate job creation, enhance productivity, and extend social protection, producing nationally-owned and evidence-based roadmaps. These include sectoral job creation potential studies, macroeconomic policy analysis, mapping of social protection schemes, and policy coherence reviews, and all informed by gender analysis and embedded in the country's 16th National Development Plan (2024-2028).
Indonesia's M-GA programme closes knowledge and capacity gaps on factors contributing to disability exclusion in the social protection sector, informing improved disability-sensitive design of existing programmes to enhance labor market outcomes for persons with disabilities.
A Vision for 2030
With only five years remaining until the 2030 deadline and progress toward most Sustainable Development Goals far too slow, the need for integrated, catalytic, and scalable solutions has never been more urgent.
The Joint SDG Fund's investment in the Global Accelerator demonstrates that pooled funding, Resident Coordinator leadership, and strategic partnerships can deliver transformative impact. By connecting policy reform with financing innovation, building national capacity with international expertise, and linking job creation with social protection expansion, these programmes are engineering comprehensive ecosystems of opportunity, resilience, and social mobility.
From Cambodia to Uzbekistan, Malawi to Namibia, Albania to Indonesia and beyond, these joint programmes are not simply implementing projects: they are catalyzing systems change that addresses economic, social, and institutional challenges simultaneously. They demonstrate that meaningful progress is possible through genuine solidarity, effective multilateralism, and inclusive international cooperation.
Original publication: https://socialprotection.org/discover/blog/building-just-transitions-un-joint-sdg-funds-catalytic-investment-jobs-and-social
Note:
All joint programmes of the Joint SDG Fund are led by UN Resident Coordinators and implemented by the agencies, funds and programmes of the United Nations development system. With sincere appreciation for the contributions from the European Union and Governments of Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Monaco, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and our private sector funding partners, for a transformative movement towards achieving the SDGs by 2030.
References
International Labour Organization (ILO). 2024. World Social Protection Report 2024-26: Universal Social Protection for Climate Action and a Just Transition. Geneva: International Labour Office. Available at: https://www.ilo.org/publications/flagship-reports/world-social-protection-report-2024-26-universal-social-protection
United Nations Global Accelerator. (n.d.). Multi-Stakeholder Engagement to Implement the UN Global Accelerator and the World Bank Compass (M-GA). Retrieved November 4, 2025, from https://www.unglobalaccelerator.org/m-ga
United Nations Global Accelerator. (n.d.). Global Accelerator on Jobs and Social Protection for Just Transitions. Retrieved November 4, 2025, from https://www.unglobalaccelerator.org/
United Nations. 2025. Doha Political Declaration of the "World Social Summit" under the title "the Second World Summit for Social Development". UN General Assembly Resolution A/80/L.5, adopted 6 October 2025. New York: United Nations. Available at: https://social.desa.un.org/sites/default/files/documents/2025/n2525932.pdf
