It estimates financing gap to attain Universal Social Protection (USP) in 133 Low and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs).

Universal Social Protection (USP)

• USP refers to set of policies designed to ensure social security to all.
  • Social Security is the protection that a society provides to individuals and households to ensure access to healthcare and to guarantee income security, particularly in cases of old age, unemployment, sickness, maternity etc.
• It includes five key social protection guarantees (for children, persons with severe disabilities, mothers of newborns, older persons and the unemployed) along with healthcare.

Key highlights 

• For LMICs, financing gap to achieve USP is 3.3% of GDP annually, requiring an additional US$1.4 trillion per year. 
• In 2024, additional government spending needed to achieve USP represents 10.6% of their annual government expenditure.
• India requires US$135.3 billion to ensure universal social protection and has a financing gap of 3.3% of GDP and 11.8% of government expenditure.

Strategies to close financing gap

• Domestic resource mobilization including increasing tax revenue and social security contributions.
• Removing explicit and implicit fuel subsidies, and introducing carbon pricing schemes. 
• Eliminating illicit financing flows such as money laundering, tax evasion and financial corruption.
• Managing sovereign debt effectively and creation of new international financing mechanism.