This study maps child-sensitive social protection initiatives in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), where children are typically overrepresented among the poor. It also considers the main actors involved in social protection provision, their strategies and programme limitations, and provides recommendations for improved child social protection. Challenges to more effective and child-sensitive social protection in the region include financial barriers, the fragmentation of provision, local-level difficulties in obtaining the correct documentation to obtain benefits, and citizens’ lack of knowledge of their entitlements.
Sources of vulnerability for children in the region include income poverty; malnutrition; poor health and education; and child protection issues (such as child labour, early marriage and displacement during emergencies).
Patterns of social protection provision in the region broadly reflect a mix of Islamic tradition and a French legacy of social security systems, with differences in levels of political commitment, fiscal space and levels of development. All countries in the region are home to a range of social protection initiatives, and in each country there is a complex jigsaw of different interventions, as well as different modalities for their provision. Types of social protection initiatives include:
- Child-specific measures, of which supporting children’s access to education is most common
- Initiatives for low-income families, such that disadvantaged children are a key beneficiary group (in Jordan and Tunisia, for example)
- Addressing broader poverty and vulnerability (through targeted and untargeted initiatives), which may benefit children through benefits to their households, if intra-household dynamics are favourable to all children (girls, boys, and children with disabilities)
- Geographically-focused interventions, such as social funds for development, which can include social protection components such as school meals and cash transfer programmes and food assistance in areas and for sections of the population that are severely food-insecure (such as in Occupied Palestinian Territory, Yemen)
- Generalised subsidies, such as food and energy subsidies (e.g. Egypt, Yemen), although the impact on poorer children would be greater if expenditure were refocused.
The main actors involved in social protection provision are governments; multilateral agencies (donors and the UN); NGOs; and religious organisations. The evidence base for analysing the scope and effectiveness of their efforts varies. Barriers and challenges to more effective and child-sensitive social protection are particularly difficult to assess. Some frequently-mentioned problems include financial barriers, fragmentation of provision, local-level difficulties in obtaining the correct documentation to obtain benefits and citizens’ lack of knowledge of their entitlements.
Gender- and age-disaggregated data should be generated systematically to enable a more refined analysis and more effective design of child-focused and broader programmes. Other recommendations for strengthening child-sensitive social protection in the region include the following:
- Multilateral agencies could play a key role in helping to develop capacity for more tailored and effective social protection programmes.
- UN agencies can play an important role in strengthening inter-agency communication to better support governments, while ensuring that new social protection initiatives supported by different agencies are child-sensitive.
- Programmes should more systematically foster synergies and complementarities between basic social services and child protection. This includes, for example, linking nutrition support programmes for young children with health checks to address different sources of malnutrition.
- The communication and dissemination of existing social protection measures should be improved, particularly among more isolated communities.
- It is important to continue to generate evidence about the specificities of child poverty and vulnerability. Detailed country-level studies, rigorously evaluated pilot projects and the promotion of information sharing across the region would inform better child-sensitive responses, and help guarantee government funding for the sector.