New report debunks World Bank and IMF’s claims that universal social protection is unaffordable
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Article summary
New report by Development Pathways and Act Church of Sweden demonstrates the viability of locally financed and gradual provision of universal social protection.
On 4 December 2025, civil society organisations Development Pathways and Act Church of Sweden launched a report titled Beyond the unaffordability myth: a pragmatic approach to universal social security. While states are under increased pressure to address their supposedly insurmountable fiscal constraints, cut social services and undertake austerity measures (see Observer Summer 2025, Spring 2025), the report makes an important empirical contribution to the literature rebutting the argument that universal social protection is unaffordable. Indeed, this argument has been long used by the World Bank and IMF as the rationale for their strong support of targeted social protection measures (see Observer Spring 2024, Autumn 2023) despite well-documented problems with targeting, such as high exclusion rates, as argued by Matthew Greensdale’s new book, Beyond the World Bank: The Fight for Universal Social Protection in the Global South.
The report, which is accompanied by a costing tool, departs from the methodological approach based on the poverty line (as used by the ILO in 2024), and opts instead to use the existing levels of support available in other countries of similar income as a point of departure. As the report highlights, this approach allows it to remain “consistent with a human rights framework since [the report] provides cost estimates that states can realistically finance with domestic resources.” It also argues that the selected approach allows schemes to be introduced gradually, ensuring that the right to social security is “progressively realised” in line with human right standards. Lena Simet of human rights organisation, Human Rights Watch stressed, “human rights law is clear that the right to social security should be progressively realized using the maximum of available resources. This report shows that universal systems are within reach, even in constrained fiscal contexts. What is needed now is the political will to make it a reality.”
