The Social Policy Research Institute (SPRI Global) is not-for-profit institute based in Belgium, which engages in research and research-based consultancy services in the field of social protection, with a concentration in poverty and inequality research and capacity building services. Our mission is to support public and private institutions in their research and policy analysis capacity as part o
f establishing functioning national social protection systems, which is paramount to ensuring sustainable, long-term growth, and to equitably fulfilling national human rights and human development commitments. Our dynamic and experienced team of leading academic experts, international development practitioners, and social policy specialists approach this challenge through innovative, robust research to inform evidence-based policy solutions and advocacy measures. We harness the strength of our diverse backgrounds, expertise and fresh perspectives in adapting our approaches to research and policy design to local, national and regional contexts. We apply our critical engagement approach, working with national partners to create high quality, context-driven policy analysis and design that is impactful and sensitive to the local political climate. We are committed to complementing these efforts with supporting the sustainable strengthening of national research and policymaking capacities, through academic and professional capacity building and training activities. It is our mission to ensure that all of our policy research and proposals provide economical and feasible solutions that support society’s most vulnerable groups, including children, women and girls, the elderly, and marginalized groups. The Sustainable Development Goals, setting out the global framework for development until 2030, reflect this reality and explicitly include social protection as a key instrument for the achievement of several stand-alone goals. The role of social protection as an effective tool for sustainable development is explicitly cited as a target under Goals 1 and 10 (reduction of poverty and inequality respectively), with inevitable linkages across the goals on health, employment, labor laws and unpaid care work, among others. The resulting question is then how social protection platforms have to be designed to help us rise to the challenge of sustainable development and achieve many of these diverse responsibilities ascribed to them: reduce inequality and poverty in multiple dimensions, reach widely across society, promote economic investment and growth (especially among low-income and disenfranchised groups) and support social inclusion, social cohesion, political stability and state building. We invite ever more people to learn about these efforts, by engaging with the public in a transparent and meaningful way. Only together do we have the chance to move closer to our vision: develop integrated and comprehensive social protection platforms focused on the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable.
