This project aimed at supporting the production of knowledge in the field of social protection and providing policy analysis in all 20 countries in the MENA region. The Centre also provided Technical Support Activities to UNICEF Country Offices.

Middle East and North Africa

Knowledge Production

Social Protection

Knowledge production, knowledge sharing and technical assistance

Between January 2017 and April 2020, the IPC-IG in partnership with UNICEF MENARO has produced a series of knowledge products on Social Protection in the MENA region (see also Publications below), including: 

• Overview of non-contributory Social Protection Programmes in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region Through a Child and Equity Lens (including 20 Country One Pagers); 

• Children’s Right to Social Protection in the Middle East and North Africa Region—an Analysis of Legal Frameworks from a Child Rights Perspective; 

• Building Shock-Responsive National Social Protection Systems in the MENA Region; 

• Fiscal Space for Child-sensitive Social Protection in the MENA region;  

• The Role of Social Protection in Young People's Transition to the Workplace in MENA ;

• Policy in Focus special edition: Social Protection After the Arab Spring

In addition, a series of seven webinars on Social Protection in the MENA Region was organised. 

Furthermore, the  Online Community ‘Social Protection in the Middle East and North Africa Region’ was created to promote exchange on the topic and promote knowledge products and webinars.  

The IPC-IG also developed remote and on-site technical assistance activities with UNICEF country offices in MENA including: 

• Djibouti (remote and on-site);  

• Iran (remote);  

• Lebanon (remote and on-site);  

• Morocco (remote and on-site);  

• Tunisia (remote and on-site);  

• Sudan (remote and on-site). 

Activities included mappings of social protection programmes, fiscal space analysis, elaboration of scenarios for social protection reforms, support to improve the child-sensitivity of national social protection systems, workshops and capacity-strengthening activities, among others.  

With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, the IPC-IG started supporting UNICEF in the region by scoping and discussing country offices’ demands for technical assistance for their activities related to social protection responses to the crisis (the technical assistance has been continued under a new partnership agreement between IPC-IG and MENARO). In addition, a detailed mapping of all social protection responses to the crisis in MENA was initiated and in partnership with the Regional UN Issue-Based Coalition on Social Protection, the IPC-IG supported the development of a technical note on the responses to Covid-19 in the region (see link here, also available in Arabic here)