Programme and Budget 2002-2003

The regular budget underpins the programme while extra-budgetary resources provide funding for substantial operational activities, significantly through the STEP (Strategies and Tools against Exclusion and Poverty) programme and the special programme on the extension of social protection. During 2002-03, the ILO will address 15 voluntary and five public schemes through integrated research and advisory services. The goal will be to: improve the capacity of public social security schemes to provide protection to more people; promote and support the development of voluntary community-based schemes and identify innovative ways of extending coverage using linkages between public systems and community-based initiatives. Special emphasis will be placed on health care, unemployment and extreme poverty.

The ILO will also analyse existing efforts to extend social protection schemes and apply those experiences to promote similar development elsewhere. Strategic partnerships will be formed with employers' and workers' organizations as well as with NGOs, in order to promote the extension of coverage and the more effective administration of social security schemes. The STEP programme will play a key role, in particular, through facilitating access to health care for informal sector workers through community-based schemes. If additional extra-budgetary funds become available, $8 million would help to extend STEP in East and Southern Africa, Central America and parts of Asia, with an orientation to the needs of women, children, home-based workers and rural workers.

Updated by JD. Approved by ER. Last update 7 december 2001