The Organisation of Trade Unions of West Africa (OTUWA) has called on governments across the West African subregion to commit at least five per cent of national income to social protection.

The regional labour body warned that inadequate funding continued to leave millions of workers vulnerable to poverty, ill-health and economic hardship.

The organisation said low public investment in social protection has left a large share of the workforce, particularly informal-sector workers, without access to essential benefits such as health insurance, pensions and maternity protection.

OTUWA Executive Secretary, John Odah, made the call at a regional workshop on the ECOWAS Framework on Social Protection and its Operational Plan for 2024–2028, organised in collaboration with the Danish Trade Union Development Agency (DTDA) in Abuja.

Odah said Nigeria currently allocates less than one per cent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to social protection, a level he considered inadequate to protect vulnerable citizens from destitution.

He argued that governments needed to expand social security beyond the formal sector, where many employers already provide benefits such as health insurance and maternity protection, to include millions of workers whose livelihoods remain outside conventional social security arrangements.

Odah questioned the fate of informal-economy workers who lack access to health insurance, pension schemes, and other protections available to some formal-sector employees.

The OTUWA Executive Secretary urged trade unions and other stakeholders to use the ECOWAS framework to strengthen social dialogue and press governments to develop policies that respond to the needs of people excluded from existing social security systems.

He also called for greater scrutiny of government-funded humanitarian interventions, stressing the need to ensure that assistance reached those who genuinely needed it.

According to him, social security should not be treated merely as an additional financial burden on governments but as an essential investment in preventing extreme poverty and protecting human dignity.

In her address, Acting President of OTUWA, Sophie Kourouma, said West Africa continued to lag behind other regions in social protection coverage, calling for stronger trade union and civil society participation in implementing the regional framework.

Kourouma disclosed that only 16 per cent of West Africa’s population received at least one social protection benefit, compared with the African average of 19.1 per cent.

She described the ECOWAS Framework on Social Protection and its Operational Plan for 2024–2028 as an important instrument for expanding coverage and strengthening social protection systems across member states.

Kourouma stressed that the workshop should produce concrete engagement strategies rather than end with discussion alone.

Also speaking, Head of the DTDA Sub-Regional Office in Lomé, Togo, Liliane Napoe, said inadequate social protection coverage and low public spending remained major challenges for workers across West Africa, particularly those in the informal economy.

Napoe said public spending on social protection averaged less than one per cent of GDP across the subregion. At the same time, only about 16 per cent of the population received at least one social protection benefit.

She urged trade unions to move beyond policy discussions and actively help governments translate regional commitments into tangible benefits for workers.

Participants were expected to review the ECOWAS framework, examine lessons from the International Labour Organisation’s Global Social Protection Report 2024–2026 and develop national action plans for trade union engagement.