This fact sheet gives a short overview of why social protection is a powerful tool for advancing gender equality and empowering women and girls. It explains that social protection systems prevent and protect people, especially women and girls, from poverty, vulnerability and social exclusion throughout the course of their lives, and that access to social protection is a human right.

It sets out how strong social protection systems increase women's income, assets and financial decision-making, support girls to stay in school, delay early marriage and pregnancy, and provide economic and social security in later years. It notes that a strong system incorporates a range of contributory and non-contributory policies and programmes, including cash and in-kind transfers, skills training, maternity, paternity and sickness benefits, social care services and pensions, and that despite global progress in expanding social protection, systems often fail to consider gender inequalities. It is structured around what social protection does, why it matters and how it supports the delivery of gender equality.