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Inclusion and Resilience: The Way Forward for Social Safety Nets in the Middle East and North Africa
The Way Forward: How to Make Safety Nets in the Middle East and North Africa More Effective and Innovative
be a good opportunity to bring practitioners together to share best practices and lessons learned and to establish an effective community of SSN experts. In addition, the better management resulting from M&E systems tends to increase donor and private sector trust and funding.
Traditionally SSN budgets have been approved based on historical allocations, regardless of programs’ outputs or results, but many countries are changing this practice. For instance, CSOs, media organizations, and academia have been active in reviewing the policies, operational rules, and procedures of the Philippines’ CCT program Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), leading to significant improvements in addressing exclusion, payments, updates, and grievances (see box 5.4). In El Salvador, NGOs actively help mothers and families meet the conditions of the Red Solidaria CCT program and link them with other social programs. So although SSN programs have not often been subject to open scrutiny by the public or CSOs or to rigorous M&E, these new, wellfunctioning social accountability systems could provide the scrutiny necessary to keep the programs’ focus on results.
M&E and Accountability Trends. A new wave of results-oriented programs in the Middle East and North Africa use integrated M&E systems. Cash transfer programs (such as in Morocco, West Bank and Gaza, and the Republic of Yemen), and workfare programs (for example, in the Republic of Yemen) have generated robust evidence that the programs work, and when they are well implemented they are achieving the intended results. In addition, pilot programs in Djibouti and Tunisia include rigorous impact evaluations in their design. This trend in the region is new and promising. Another emerging trend is the development of integrated program monitoring systems. Economies like Djibouti, West Bank and Gaza, and the Republic of Yemen developed (computer-based) integrated management information systems (MIS) that became the backbone of the program operation cycle. These systems set up (a) the institutional channels through which the data required to process program transactions circulate, and (b) the modules from which the data can be accessed. An MIS also establishes procedures for data collection and processing, as well as for access control and database management to provide end users with analytical information for everyday implementation, control, and supervision. In particular, these systems create and automate business transactions under the program, allow for easy control of funds for program administration needs, and systematize information for targeted provision of benefits. Beyond learning how well a program achieves its expected outcomes, it may also be important to determine whether a program meets its objectives, whether the program’s benefits outweigh the costs, and what the program’s estimated net impact is. Impact evaluations often involve external entities such as universities, NGOs, think tanks, and international organizations to guarantee impartiality and credibility.6 In the Mexico CCT, Oportunidades, for example, credible impact evaluations demonstrated that the program had sustainable impacts on education, health, nutrition, and diet, which enabled the program to prevail even after a change in government.7 Following Mexico’s pioneering of impact evaluation, most CCT programs in Latin America and elsewhere now incorporate robust monitoring and impact evaluation studies done by independent third parties, usually local universities and international research centers. In the Middle East and North Africa, a few countries are starting to promote impact evaluations of programs, but these are still a minority.
Reaching Out to Other Stakeholders (Citizens, NGOs, CSOs, Private Sector, and Nonprofits) Currently, awareness about existing SSN programs is low and skewed toward the wealthy. Chapter 4 highlighted the low level of name recognition of some SSN programs in the Middle East and North Africa (for example, in the Arab Republic of Egypt, 23 percent of the MENA SPEAKS survey respondents did not know a single SSN program in the country). For programs with on-demand registration, awareness about the existence of the program, eligibility criteria, and application procedures is essential. Comprehensive communication campaigns are needed to inform poor and vulnerable citizens of the safety net that is available to them. Moreover, engaging a broader spectrum of stakeholders (such as NGOs, CSOs, and nonprofits) in financing and implementing SSN programs could leverage their existing financial and human resources. The private sector can also participate in financing and implementing SSNs. In countries such as the United States, a significant part of SSN financing comes from individual citizens’ or private corporations’ donations. NGOs and CSOs run many of the programs. In addition, government funds can finance other operators to implement specific programs. For example, in the city of New York, nonfederal SSN programs are designed by the mayor’s office, which publishes a call for implementation proposals from NGOs and CSOs. After interested CSOs and NGOs send financial and technical proposals, a transparent competition selects the best proposal. A performance-based contract—agreeing to pay a provider for the achievement of an outcome—is then signed with the selected provider. The role of the government then shifts from implementation to funding and regulation, which allows for more efficient use of scarce administrative capacity.
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