Building universal social protection systems for all: What role for targeting?

The consensus on the need to build universal social protective systems to provide income security and health protection for all has been reinforced by the COVID-19 pandemic. The crisis that shook the world over the past two and a half years not only revealed large gaps in coverage, adequacy and comprehensiveness of social protection systems but also drove the message home that a universal social protection system reaching everyone is automatically primed to protect all those affected by a systemic shock. In the face of complex and fast-moving crises, universalism is preferable to targeted approaches, especially where the administrative capacity to target is limited and a very high proportion of the population is vulnerable. Universalism makes more practical sense than ad hoc efforts to 'effectively' target, the limitations of which are well documented.