Promoting and building social protection in South Asia: Sri Lanka component

Background and Rationale

Social protection is a fundamental human right, yet the effective coverage of social protection of population covered by at least one benefit in South Asia remains critically low at 35.4%, with informal employment at 86.6%, far exceeding the global average of 57.8%. This exacerbates the vulnerability of informal workers, particularly platform, and care workers, who lack access to adequate social security benefits.

In Sri Lanka, only 41.3% of the population is covered by at least one social protection benefit, leaving large segments of informal workers – who make up over 67% of the workforce - without adequate coverage. The existing social protection system remains fragmented, combining contributory and non-contributory schemes with limited fiscal space and few gender-responsive measures. Migrant care workers, many of whom are women, face additional risks due to insufficient protection across both home and destination countries.

The care economy, a key priority for social protection in Sri Lanka, remains undervalued and under protected despite its vital role, particularly in the context of an aging population and low female labour force participation. The ILO, in close collaboration with the Sri Lankan government and social partners, has been supporting reforms to expand social insurance schemes. These include the design of new unemployment, maternity, and pension schemes, with technical assistance provided under Japan-funded initiatives.

Sri Lanka and India, the key countries in this project, face distinct but overlapping challenges, including the limited or no coverage of social insurance schemes and the absence of targeted social protection mechanisms for specific occupational groups, such as platform workers and migrant workers. This project seeks to address and take actions to these gaps by building sustainable and gender-transformative social protection systems in Sri Lanka and India.

Project Outcomes:

The ultimate objective is to achieve decent work where all workers, particularly those having limited access to social protection will benefit from more advanced social protection systems in South Asia.

• Outcome 1: Social protection system with a particular focus on pension scheme and maternity protection is improved by introducing and strengthening social insurance systems extended to all workers, with a particular focus on informal workers including new forms of work and unregistered workers with established employment relationship.
• Outcome 2: Gender-transformative social protection system is elaborated to extend social protection coverage to care workers including migrant workers engaging into care works.

Expected Results:

• Technical interventions in the areas of social insurance and care works by strengthening and expanding social protection options and extending social protection coverage.
• Focus on extending social protection to informal workers while formulating a long-term financial sustainability of social protection system.
• Gender equality is mainstreamed throughout project implementation and development of gender-transformative social protection system extended to care workers will be sought.
  

Partner Countries: India and Sri Lanka

Key Partners:

• Tripartite constituents in each country
• Public social security institutions
• Platform companies

Target Beneficiaries:

Direct Beneficiaries

• Government institutions
• Social Partners

Ultimate Beneficiaries

• Platform workers
• Workers nearing or at retirement age, those on maternity leave, and their families
• Domestic and care workers, including migrant workers