A new global initiative ensuring the social protection of the world's poorest people is a growing necessity, two United Nations independent experts said today, noting that without such a programme, chronic unemployment, food insecurity, and natural disasters would pose continuous impediments to those seeking to emerge from poverty.
In a joint news release, Magdalena Sepúlveda and Olivier De Schutter, the UN Special Rapporteurs on extreme poverty and the right to food, respectively, urged the creation of a Global Fund for Social Protection, stating that 2 per cent of the world's gross domestic product (GDP) would be enough to provide all the world's poor with basic social protection from the effects of unemployment, illness, disability, crop failure and soaring food costs.
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