The World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) have published a new monitoring and evaluation framework to enable countries to track progress towards universal social protection inclusive of people with tuberculosis (TB).
People with TB and their households often face substantial social and economic consequences, including costs associated with accessing and completing care, and loss of income and employment. Across countries that have conducted national TB household cost surveys, nearly half (47%) of people treated for TB and their households experience catastrophic costs. Social protection can help mitigate these impacts, reduce financial hardship and improve health and social outcomes.
At the 2023 United Nations General Assembly High-Level Meeting on TB, Member States committed to ensuring that 100% of people with TB have access to a health and social benefits package by 2027. The new WHO–ILO framework provides a practical approach to measuring progress towards this commitment and identifying gaps in coverage and protection.
“This new framework marks an important step in translating the global commitment on social protection for people with TB into measurable action,” said Dr Tereza Kasaeva, Director of WHO’s Department for HIV, Tuberculosis, Hepatitis and Sexually Transmitted Infections. “By enabling countries to assess whether people with TB are effectively reached by health and social benefits, and whether this support is timely, adequate and comprehensive, the framework will help identify gaps and guide action. We urge countries and partners to use it to accelerate progress towards the 2027 target.”
The framework proposes a phased approach to monitoring that can be applied across countries with different social protection systems, data availability and monitoring capacities. It enables countries to build on existing health and social protection monitoring systems while progressively strengthening measurement of whether people with TB are effectively reached and protected. The framework complements the 2024 WHO–ILO Guidance on social protection for people affected by tuberculosis by providing a practical approach to monitoring progress and identifying gaps in effective coverage.
“Universal social protection is critical to ensuring that people with TB and their families are protected from the social and economic consequences of illness,” said Shahra Razavi, Director of the Labour and Social Protection Department at the International Labour Organization. “This framework will help countries build on existing social protection systems and strengthen links with the health sector so that people with TB are effectively included. This is essential to translating global commitments into meaningful and sustainable protection for people with TB and their families.”
By bringing together health and social protection perspectives, the framework aims to strengthen collaboration across sectors and support countries to identify gaps, improve programmes and accelerate progress towards universal social protection inclusive of people with TB, and contribute to multisectoral monitoring and accountability through WHO’s Multisectoral Accountability Framework to end TB (MAF-TB).