For the Concept Note and Conference Agenda, click here. 

The discussion will be held in both Arabic and English, with simultaneous interpretation available online.

You can register to attend by following this link. You will receive a Zoom confirmation email should your registration be successful. Alternatively, you can watch the event live here on our Facebook page.

Financing mechanisms are key for the effective implementation of universal social protection systems. However, Arab States and International Financial Institutions (IFIs) often cite the complexities surrounding these mechanisms as reasons to avoid transitioning to such systems. They also argue that poverty-targeted social safety nets, typically financed by loans or, at best, grants from IFIs and international donors, are the only feasible option. Yet, multilateral development aid entails debt accumulation, austerity measures, and poor credit risk management, which reduce the fiscal space available for social spending. It also imposes multi-faceted conditionality and promotes private sector-driven solutions that further jeopardize the inclusiveness, effectiveness and sustainability of social protection systems.

However, there are many financing alternatives that can prevent or mitigate the repercussions of mainstream development financing. These alternatives include global solidarity or global social protection funds, global taxation, contributory/ self-financed schemes, fiscal decentralization (where applicable), debt restructuring, climate finance instruments, and progressive and redistributive fiscal reforms like wealth and corporate income taxes. Broader public finance reforms, including ones that are administrative, can also alleviate the dependence on foreign aid. By enabling the internal redistribution of wealth and public resources, these alternative mechanisms uphold the principle of solidarity financing both inter- and intra-generationally.

In this context, the Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)’s Social Protection Program (SPP) is organizing its second Annual Regional Policy Forum, in partnership with Oxfam in MENA, around financing mechanisms for universal social protection systems in the Arab region. This Forum brings together researchers, practitioners, activists, and policymakers to share and discuss the latest research findings from ARI, partners of SPP’s Arab Region Hub for Social Protection, members of the Global Campaign for the Right to Social Security, and independent civil society at large. The aim of this year’s Forum is to offer a space for a multi-stakeholder dialogue looking into advancing evidence-based alternatives to debt and austerity that are feasible and tangible given the context-specificities of the different Arab countries. It also seeks to build on international success stories and lessons learnt, and benefit from good practices of fiscal space strategies for universal social protection.