Analysis of opportunities for synergies/coherence in coverage, adequacy, resourcing and administration procedures between social protection humanitarian and national programmes in Occupied Palestine

Under the supervision of the Technical Officer for Social Protection and the National Project Coordinator based in ILO-Jerusalem, and in close collaboration with the SPCVA TWG (and specifically, MoSD, OCHA and the National CWG as members of the SPCVA TWG Core Group), the External Collaborator will carry out the following activities:

Analysis of opportunities for synergies or coherence in coverage, adequacy, resourcing and administration procedures between social protection humanitarian and national programmes in Occupied Palestinian Territory

 

Context

 

Cash and in-kind transfers, together with critical social services, make up the range of social protection benefits provided for under the mandate of the Ministry of Social Development (MoSD) in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). The Ministry’s vision for the social protection system is laid out in the Social Development Sector Strategy (SDSS; 2020-23), which calls for the progressive implementation of a Palestinian social protection floor and for supplementing its longstanding anti-poverty programmes with rights-based social protection guarantees across the lifecycle. 

 

The main governmental programme is the Palestinian National Cash Transfer Program (PNCTP) which reaches roughly 115,000 households with regular benefits. While sizeable in reach, insufficient coordination across the international and government actors, as well as significant variation in transfer typology and levels of benefits, have led to a fragmented and ineffective system.

 

Humanitarian safety net programmes initially conceived for emergencies have become structural over time and represent a significant part of the social protection system, particularly social assistance. The largest are the operations of UNRWA and WFP, but other international and national organizations distribute significant cash and in-kind benefits. In 2021, WFP reached approximately 260,000 households with cash and/or in-kind assistance, while UNRWA regularly serves over one million Palestinian refugees.

 

Current overlaps and duplications

 

The MoSD often partners with these organizations to conduct outreach and assessments, to provide supplemental benefits to government transfer recipients and, as it did throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, to identify and register households exceptionally affected by crises. But differing mandates, organizational cultures with respect to social protection, institutional policies and procedures for distributing cash assistance, and lack of formal coordination have led to a fragmentation of efforts across actors. In some cases, overlaps may represent an intentional duplication across programmes made possible through selection and identification procedures of programmes designed to be complementary. Unwanted overlaps, however, may stem from either misaligned eligibility criteria or a lack of adequate information sharing across programmes. Similarly, misalignment or insufficient coordination may also lead to certain groups of the poor and vulnerable population falling through the cracks of the social protection system.

 

One of the biggest challenges facing administrators when programming transfer resources is striking an optimal balance between reaching sufficient coverage of the population and providing adequate support for beneficiaries facing significant hardship.  In the OPT, there are different approaches taken by different actors and programmes.  Some programmes operate with limited duration, particularly humanitarian interventions funded exceptionally through donor appeals, and may deliver larger transfers for shorter periods.  Others are designed to provide regular and predictable benefits for longer periods to individual or beneficiary households facing poverty not due to any particular recent shock.  The rational for assigning transfer values and trade-offs off with respect to coverage are often grounded in programmatic objectives, which may range from providing essential support to the chronic poor to helping those affected by crisis to avoid or exit poverty during the programme.  In some cases, transfers are provided to households to support consumption within a family unit, while in others, they are provided to individuals on a rights basis.

 

                If programmatic coherence begins with programme design, it is then either ensured or prevented through programme administration. Administrative coordination in social protection administration can increase the impact of interventions, reduce administrative costs borne by implementers, and simplify procedures for beneficiaries.  This coordination can include a wide range of administrative functions, including the provision of programme information through outreach efforts and communications channels, the selection and registration of recipients through harmonized questionnaires and data collection tools, the acceptance and validation of identification documents, transfer delivery mechanisms, provider procurement contracting processes, complaints and grievances mechanism systems, and monitoring and evaluation processes. There is also scope for new systemic approaches scope to improve social protection administration, for instance the integration of front office or back office procedures (drawing on the potential of the new national social registry), to streamline the beneficiary interface and simplify registration, verification and enrolment processes through unified “one-stop shops” or “single-window service” points. 

 

 

Ongoing work on strengthening coordination / coherence

 

“Strengthening nexus coherence and responsiveness in the Palestinian social protection sector” is an EU-funded project under implementation by the ILO, Oxfam and UNICEF which aims to support the MoSD to enhance coordination across government and non-governmental actors and initiatives in the social protection sector. The main objectives are to i) increase rights-based and nexus programmatic coherence of social protection, and ii) enhance responsiveness of the social protection system.  

 

Through this project, the Social Protection Cash and Voucher Assistance Thematic Working Group (SPCVA TWG) has been established under the Local Aid Coordination Secretariat (LACS) mechanism to enhance coordination across humanitarian, development and government actors. Further, a comprehensive mapping of all government and non-governmental social assistance interventions (in-kind and cash transfers) in the West Bank and Gaza Strip has been carried out. The final database (detailing around 75 programmes in an excel sheet) and accompanying ‘user-friendly’ dashboard (to be developed in PowerBi) will allow actors to assess at the policy/planning level the coverage, adequacy, overlaps and gaps in existing social assistance schemes. The final database/dashboard will be owned by the SPCVA TWG and will provide evidence to inform discussions across the workstreams of this group. Data was collected in the following fields:

 

• Programme scope: Title, year, primary objective, regular vs. project-based programme, MPCA vs. sectoral cash, budget, duration, possibility of extension.
• Coverage: Geographic, per lifecycle stage, per vulnerability, actual beneficiary numbers (where available)
• Adequacy: Transfer value, currency, household vs. individual transfers, number of instalments, frequency of payments
• Administrative tools and procedures: Targeting lists, targeting mechanisms, transfer value determination mechanisms, modality (CVA), conditionality, complementary services, mechanisms for case management, grievance redressal and referrals, exit procedures.

 

Rationale for this assignment

 

In the OPT, a lack of communication among government, humanitarian, and development actors, impedes the governance and sustainability of social protection programmes, including with respect to their planning, programming and delivery. Ultimately, the lack of coordination across relevant actors is often due to a limited understanding of each other’s interventions, programmes, priorities, systems and responsibilities. To this end, the identification of all interventions’ strengths and how their activities fit into the longer-term objectives across the development and humanitarian nexus in the social protection sector is key for enhanced cooperation and joint programming and financing within the sector. The identification, assessment and prioritisation of entry points for programmatic coherence – including potential for alignment of targeting and eligibility criteria, transfer value determination mechanisms, utilising the social registry, etc. – will be critical to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of social protection delivery across the sector.

 

A wealth of information is available on the barriers and impediments to programmatic coherence – a key knowledge gap in the current sector understanding is on who does what, when, and how (to be defined ex-ante at the planning, design and funding stages of project development), and how to make sure that the work of all actors fills gaps and fits into the overall objective of enhancing coherence and responsiveness of the social protection system.    

 

While the role of international organizations becomes clearer to policymakers and programme administrators, for many social protection beneficiaries, myriad programmes with different eligibility and other programme aspects, such as transfer values and periodicity of payment among others, continue to complicate navigation of the public and para-public administration.  This assignment will allow for a review of the design features and rules of various government and non-governmental programmes to identify areas where alignment of certain aspects across humanitarian and governmental programmes could better support associated development outcomes and administrative streamlining.

 

Purpose

 

Under Specific Objective 1 of the project, it is planned to review social assistance programme design features and administrative tools across the nexus and to make recommendations for alignment of these in support of greater cross-nexus programmatic coherence. The comprehensive mapping and the establishment of the SPCVA TWG are first steps towards this goal. The next step, and the purpose of this assignment, is to identify and recommend programme design features and implementation aspects that could be leveraged to reduce overlaps and gaps in coverage, adequacy and comprehensiveness, ultimately towards achieving a greater impact of SPCVA programming across the nexus.

 

The recommendations and advocacy document produced as part of the assignment will be used to improve: 1) Efficacy – increasing the collective impact of social protection through better coordinated programming across the nexus; 2) Efficiency – achieving operational gains (streamlined processes, cost efficiencies) through cooperation across actors); and 3) Equity – greater transparency and fairness of the system and it’s clarity for beneficiaries (who get what, how much, and why?). Recommendations will give priority to long-term safety nets and multi-purpose cash assistance (MPCA), which are more likely to offer opportunities for coherence than one-off sectoral cash.

 

Linkages, audience and sustainability of recommendations

 

The SPCVA TWG constitutes 3 workstreams – on ‘routine social protection’, ‘social protection in shocks’ and ‘referrals’. This assignment links directly to the first workstream on routine social protection, which aims to find complementarities between humanitarian and development actor programming through strengthening programmatic coherence (at the planning stage) and to practically implement these opportunities through work on data sharing. All work carried out will build on and acknowledge the existing harmonisation in the sector, including linkages to MoSD beneficiary lists and Cash Working Group (CWG) standards.

 

This assignment will be owned and led by the SPCVA TWG, with guidance from the Core Group (MoSD and OCHA) and in particular the ILO as technical support to the SPCVA TWG. It will require strong engagement with SPCVA TWG members and workstreams throughout, to establish the correct categorisation of existing programmes, to build support for the proposed recommendations and to work towards implementation of recommendations in this regard. The target audience includes the MoSD, development actors who part-fund the PNCTP (i.e. EU and World Bank) and other humanitarian and development actors, who have recently shown an interest in aligning social protection programming design across the nexus. The findings will be communicated to donors to highlight the potential synergies, contradictions and variance produced through their current programming methodologies. The eventual recommendations are also intended to feed into the development of the new MoSD strategy (being drafted in 2023) and humanitarian annual planning cycles.

 

Activities

 

Under the supervision of the Technical Officer for Social Protection and the National Project Coordinator based in ILO-Jerusalem, and in close collaboration with the SPCVA TWG (and specifically, MoSD, OCHA and the National CWG as members of the SPCVA TWG Core Group), the External Collaborator will carry out the following activities:

 

• Review of relevant background documents to inform the analysis and recommendations. This will include but is not limited to: the SPCVA TWG Synthesis Report (ILO); the MoSD Social Development Sector Strategy (SDSS); the Social Protection Floors Assessment (ILO); the Shock-Responsive Social Protection Readiness Assessment (UNICEF); the 2023 Humanitarian Needs Overview and Response Plan (HNO and HRP); several recent ILO reports on coverage and adequacy in the OPT; and other key government and humanitarian actor policies and strategies.
• Review and analysis on programme database from the comprehensive mapping. The mapping exercise was carried out earlier in 2023 by the ILO, through a consultancy company. Although a survey mechanism was used to fill the data, the end result is an excel database that expands on the usual CWG 5Ws to include more rich information on coverage, adequacy and programme administration. The review will first 1) identify and highlight any critical gaps in the information available (e.g. empty data fields on coverage, budget or resources), which the ILO will then aim to fill, and 2) prioritise the programmes that will be included in each part of the later analysis. Throughout the analysis the consultant will also provide recommendations on how the database could be improved during the next round of data collection (in Q4 2023), including which data fields could be excluded / included.
• Regularly attend workstream meetings of the SPCVA TWG to inform analysis and generate buy-in. In the OPT, interest has been stimulated in the SPCVA sector for enhancing coherence across the nexus and there are several agencies who are actively engaged in the discussions. In this sense, it will be crucial for the consultant to engage with SPCVA TWG members throughout the process – to inform the analysis, to generate buy-in for the results, and to ensure that recommendations are relevant and well-placed within ongoing discussions and progress. The consultant will facilitate a conversation and ideas generation process, owned by the SPCVA TWG, rather than generating stand-alone analysis that isn’t linked to broader sectoral discussions. This will be achieved through regular attendance and engagement with the SPCVA TWG workstreams and membership.
• Review of each relevant section of the database and conduct analysis towards improving policy coherence:
  • Coverage and comprehensiveness (per geography, lifecycle, vulnerability): Programmes will be categorised by constituency / lifecycle risk and key social assistance actors defined for each. The analysis will identify the duplication and convergence of programming (mapped against differing programme aims) and document coverage gaps or overlaps in order to identify key programme design aspects that could be leveraged to improve coverage, comprehensiveness and impact. It will include due consideration of processes for cross-checking beneficiary lists; data sharing, management and protection concerns (e.g. who can access, how, level of access, ethical considerations); and the irregularity of the PNCTP as key drivers/barriers to actualising programmatic coherence with different actors. It will also recognise the importance and potential of establishing a social protection floor with social allowances as a critical gap in the current system in the OPT.  
  • Adequacy (transfer values, frequency and duration of payments per beneficiary group / programme type): Building on recommendations from a recent ILO report on social protection adequacy in the OPT, this analysis will review the adequacy of current transfers and programme design as compared to ideal policy and practice, including transfer value, duration, regularity, predictability, and accessibility.         . It will analyse the efficacy and efficiency of arrangements with respect to the stated programmatic objectives, whether satisfying an entitlement to social protection, smoothing consumption / meeting needs after crises, or graduating beneficiaries from poverty and into greater positive risk-taking behaviours and human development. The findings will inform recommendations for the potential alignment of transfer setting and distribution mechanisms.
• Review and conduct analysis of each section of the database towards improving operational coherence:
  • Administrative tools (mechanisms for targeting, transfer value determination, administration, method of distribution): The review will create an inventory of available programme tools used for identification, assessment, payment, etc. of social protection beneficiaries across development/humanitarian programmes                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                . It will    identify and prioritize the existing “low hanging fruit” for better administrative coordination and alignment, as well as the potential for other tools and resource sharing across programmes, in order to increase administrative synergies across programmes. It will analyse existing processes and their potential for alignment, as well as propose new potential systematic approaches for achieving greater efficiency for administrators and transparency for beneficiaries across the system. Recommendations will be made for operationalizing and prioritising potential synergies and increasing efficiency through new systemic approaches. As with considerations for harmonizing programme design features, recommendations should take into consideration institutional or other constraints to higher degrees of integration as well as potential methods for overcome obstacles.
• Identify entry-points and produce recommendations to improve linkages at the programmatic level between social protection programmes and their respective implementers, with the aim of strengthening oversight and collective management of programmes in line with the agreed policy objectives. The intention is to improve programmatic coherence across various government and non-governmental programmes in a cross-nexus social protection sector for OPT, through harmonising where appropriate certain programme rules and procedures. While some programmes have different development or social protection objectives and, therefore, different approaches to qualifying beneficiaries and administering transfers, the case for some degree of harmonization can be made from a systems coherence perspective (i.e., generalized approaches across programmes with similar objectives) and from a transparency one (aimed at simplifying the social protection system for its users). Recommendations will be provided on where and how (practically) assistance could be intentionally layered and through which modalities (hence leading to complementarities), and where assistance could be de-duplicated. Recommendations will be made for 1) improving alignment of policies and programming features; and 2) improving and standardizing administrative tools.
• Present and discuss recommendations on potential alignment and harmonisation with SPCVA TWG members. Findings and policy questions emerging from the review will be presented to key actors for discussion, to identify synergies or potential openings for harmonisation and to stimulate demand for further activities under the SPCVA TWG workstreams. Practical next steps for implementation will be discussed and action points agreed and documented. Throughout the assignment, the consultant will attend meetings with SPCVA TWG members and workstream meetings to shape their understanding of the current situation and the existing opportunities/barriers to intentional layering or de-duplication between actors.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
• Comparative analysis of headline figures/findings and preparation of an advocacy-based Policy Brief: The resources mapping will be updated by the ILO and the consultant to include other funding streams if needed (e.g. Qatari funds, remittances, Islamic charities, etc.). Once completed, a policy brief will be prepared for advocacy purposes, outlining headline comparative figures on the social assistance sector across the nexus. This includes comparisons of: 1) resources available against key national and global social protection indicators (e.g. coverage, adequacy, comprehensiveness); 2) population in need against number of people covered; 3) individual need (per lifecycle group) against amount of assistance received, etc. This will build on findings from the comprehensive mapping and also from a resources mapping currently being carried out by UNICEF.

 

 

 

 

Outputs

The deliverable outputs of the assignment under the scope of these terms of reference are as follows:

 

1. Submission of a 2-pager with recommendations to improve the comprehensive mapping. This short document will outline recommendations to improve the database (and consequently the associated dashboard) through improvements to data collection during the next period.
2. Submission of a final technical report. The preparation of this report will involve meetings with key SPCVA TWG members to generate ownership for the proposed reforms. The consultant will submit a draft report outlining the review, analysis and recommendations on policy and operational coherence, building on the results of the comprehensive mapping previously carried out by the ILO. The consultant will regularly attend workstream meetings to gain context for this work. The consultant will deliver a presentation to the SPCVA TWG on recommended amendments to programme design aspects to reduce overlaps and gaps in coverage, adequacy and comprehensiveness; as well as key opportunities for alignment of administrative tools. Completion of the final technical report will be based on feedback and comments received from key stakeholders.
3. Submission of a policy brief with infographics to communicate headline figures and findings. A draft policy brief will be reviewed by the ILO and the consultant will make appropriate amendments before submitting the final version.

 

Assignment duration and payment schedule

4 months

• First payment, 70% payable upon receipt of the 2-pager and the final technical report, incorporating findings from the presentation to the SPCVA TWG and responding to feedback received. (Deliverables 1 & 2), by 30 September 2023.
• Second payment (final), 30% payable upon submission of the policy brief, incorporating findings from the presentation to the SPCVA TWG and responding to feedback received. (Deliverable 3), by 31 October             2023.

 

Qualifications and Experience Required:

The External Collaborator is expected to have the following qualifications, experience and competencies:

• Education: University degree in relevant subject, such as social protection, social policy, economics, etc.
• At least five years of relevant work experience in social protection policy.
• Documented experience and exposure to cash and voucher assistance, from either the humanitarian or development angle.
• Demonstrated experience in conducting analysis on programme data to find common themes and deliver recommendations.
• Understanding of the humanitarian-development-peace nexus, in particular with relation to social protection and cash and voucher assistance, and how to build coherence across these fields.
• Familiarity with the work of the ILO and with international labour standards.
• Ability to work proactively while keeping ILO officials engaged and informed.
• Excellent command written English.

 

Timeframe

The duration of this assignment is 25-30 working days between 15 July 2023 and 31 October 2023.

 

Application Process

Suppliers are invited to share the following documents by 7 July 2023 with the ILO social protection team in OPT at reid@ilo.org and badarna@ilo.org.

• A short proposal for review and analysis methodology (e.g. 1 page);
• CV;
• An example of previous analysis on a similar topic;
• Financial proposal (Daily Rate).