Social policy issues have been the subject of significant policy interest in the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA) region in the last decade. In an effort to support this field of expertise and connect with experts who can help direct policy-making in this region, the UNICEF MENA regional office (MENARO, based in Amman, Jordan) commissioned the University of Bath to develop a database of expertise on social policy in MENA.

We identified individuals and institutions with social policy expertise relevant to UNICEF’s work in MENA through a variety of methods including questionnaires and interviews, mapping of networks and literature reviews. Using the information gathered, we produced a comprehensive regional mapping of individuals and institutions in the MENA region who specialise in the following areas:

• child poverty
• social protection
• public finance for children
• decentralisation and local governance

This is a first-of-its-kind, publicly available and searchable online resource which will be hosted and administered by the MENA Social Policy Network (MENASP) and the Institute for Mathematical Innovation (IMI) at the University of Bath.

Project outputs and impacts

This programme of work delivered:

• a detailed inception report to UNICEF
• an interim report to UNICEF
• a publicly searchable database
• an analytical report to UNICEF

This will contribute directly to an improvement in the quality of UNICEF’s social policy work in the region by facilitating partnerships with experts or centres of expertise in the region. It will promote networking within and between countries in the region and will also give pointers for targeted capacity strengthening.

Project team

• Rana Jawad
• Jonatan Dawes
• Christopher Hallsworth
• Jason Hart
• Jordan Tchilingirian

Funder

This project was funded by UNICEF MENARO.