This toolkit focuses on best practices for social protection advocacy. Its fundamental starting point is the assertion that social protection is a human right. Social protection is defined as a set of policies to help women, men and children reach or maintain an adequate standard of living and good health. Building social protection systems (including social protection floors) is at the forefront of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, because these systems reduce and prevent poverty while also levelling out inequalities.
This toolkit was initiated by the Asian Roundtable on Social Protection (AROSP). It is the product of deep, collaborative discussion between AROSP’s member groups during the Southeast Asia Researchers Meeting held in Bangkok, Thailand, during 15-16 June 2019 with 26 participants from 19 organizations located in Cambodia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, all representing marginalised workers. At this meeting, a technical working group was set up to draft the advocacy toolkit. This working group is coordinated by AMRC and composed of Suntaree H. Saeng-ging from Homenet – SEA, Rosalinda Ofreneo from DIGNIDAD Philippines and Rizki Estrada from INISIATIF Indonesia.
The toolkit is the second publication of AROSP, following the first manual on Social Protection from the Perspective of Grassroots People. While the first manual focused on the concept of social protection, exploring how it has defined, analysed and demanded by people at the grassroots level, this toolkit focuses more on tactics and strategies to advocate for the fulfilment of people’s social protection demands.
The draft toolkit was tested through three trainings (2 offline and 1 online) conducted by Inisiatif Indonesia and HomeNet Philippines, Homenet-SEA and WIEGO, all of which provided input for the finalisation of the toolkit and also acted as examples of the toolkit’s flexibility.