From 9–13 February 2026, the Global Accelerator on Jobs and Social Protection for Just Transitions (GA) brings together 19 Pathfinder Countries for a week-long Capacity Building and Knowledge Exchange Forum. The gathering marks more than a milestone event. It reflects a broader transition already underway: countries are moving from policy design to implementation, translating commitments on decent jobs, universal social protection, and just transitions into concrete institutional reforms.
Across diverse regions, governments are converging around a shared policy insight, employment systems and social protection systems cannot operate in isolation. Economic volatility, climate pressures, demographic shifts, and persistent informality are exposing the limits of fragmented approaches. In response, countries are advancing integrated reforms that link labour markets, social registries, care systems, agriculture, and migration governance into more coherent frameworks that deliver both opportunity and security.
Bhutan is strengthening the links among employment, migration, and social protection to better reflect the realities of a mobile, informal workforce increasingly exposed to climate risks. Rather than addressing these areas through separate programmes, the country is developing mutually reinforcing systems.
A labour market monitoring tool is improving the evidence base for employment policies and enabling more responsive planning. Climate-smart agriculture initiatives targeting women directly link environmental adaptation to income security and livelihoods. Diaspora engagement policies recognise migration as an economic and social asset, while a disability-inclusive social protection pilot at the district level is testing approaches to ensure systems are accessible from the outset. With tens of thousands of informal workers, migrants, and persons with disabilities in focus, Bhutan’s reforms illustrate how inclusion can be built into system design rather than added later through corrective measures.
Colombia’s efforts centre on the role of data systems in shaping access to both social protection and employment services. The Universal Income Registry is being enhanced from a beneficiary database into an operational tool that informs policy decisions and programme delivery.
New analytical modules assess the situation of children and adolescents, gender-based vulnerabilities, and household responses to shocks. This evidence is being used to identify exclusion errors and access barriers, particularly in historically deprived regions. Pilots of social protection in selected municipalities, including high-deprivation areas, are testing ways to simplify procedures and improve service integration at the local level.
These technical reforms build on earlier work to develop a nationally endorsed roadmap that brought together a broad range of stakeholders and fostered public engagement. Together, these steps show how stronger data governance and institutional coordination can better connect protection systems with pathways to decent work.
Malawi is advancing integration across its productive sectors, with agriculture serving as a key entry point. By strengthening agricultural value chains, the country is expanding employment opportunities while reinforcing the foundations for broader social protection.
The programme supports tens of thousands of direct beneficiaries and millions more indirectly, while boosting productivity among millions of smallholder farming families. Gender-responsive skills development and policy reforms are embedded in this approach to ensure that growth translates into more inclusive labour market outcomes. Significant aligned investments and links to the national long-term development vision further position this work as part of structural transformation.
In this context, economic policy and social policy are closely intertwined. Improving productivity, market access, and value chain performance also strengthens resilience and the institutional space for protection systems to operate effectively.
Nepal’s experience highlights the importance of gender and care in building integrated systems. Initial work to develop a national approach to decent jobs and social protection for women, youth, and marginalised groups has evolved into broader reforms that address both labour market outcomes and the organisation of care.
Current efforts focus on raising productivity, expanding decent employment, and extending coverage to vulnerable and informal workers. At the same time, gender-responsive social protection policies, new financing models, and pilot care services are helping to recognise care as a core component of the economy. Strengthened social dialogue and improved working conditions in care-related sectors accompany increased public investment. By incorporating care into economic and social policy frameworks, Nepal is addressing structural constraints that limit women’s participation and shaping a more inclusive model of growth.
Across these countries, reforms differ in entry points and institutional pathways, but share a common direction. Social protection is increasingly linked to labour market policies, data systems, sectoral strategies, and gender-responsive reforms. Rather than functioning solely as a response to shocks, protection mechanisms are being aligned with efforts to expand decent work, raise productivity, and reduce structural inequalities.
This integrated approach reflects a growing understanding that resilience, inclusion, and economic opportunity are mutually dependent. Systems that connect these dimensions are better positioned to support people through transitions, reduce exclusion, and enable more sustainable and equitable development.
Over the past two years, the Global Accelerator has made a decisive shift from design to implementation, with two funding rounds launched under the Joint SDG Fund’s decent jobs and universal social protection window and 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). These funding rounds have enabled the design and implementation of 47 UN and UN-World Bank joint programmes in the Pathfinder Countries.
Each Pathfinder Country is developing and implementing a government-led roadmap, developed through a participatory, tripartite, and whole-of-government process, to translate national and global commitments into concrete policy actions.
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, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland for a transformative movement towards achieving the SDGs by 2030.
