1.
Constanza Tabbush, Research Specialist,
UN Women
Elena Camilletti, Research Officer,
UNICEF Office of Research Innocenti
Silke Staab, Research Specialist, UN
Women
Zahrah Nesbitt-Ahmed, Gender and
Development Manager (Research),
UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti

2.
Please send us your questions
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3.
• Introduction and motivation for the research
• Concepts and definitions, analytical framework, and
methodology
• Key findings – national social protection strategies
• Key findings – social protection programmes
• Concluding remarks

4.
5

5.
● Increasing attention to social protection at national and global level both as a human right
● Poverty, risks and vulnerabilities are gendered
● COVID-19 pandemic has emphasised gendered nature of crises, risks and vulnerabilities
● Gaps remain in our understanding of if and how gender is integrated into social
protection strategies and programmes
6

6.
● UN Women, UNICEF Innocenti and other partners started a collaboration to investigate the
extent to which gender has been integrated, or not, across a range of national social protection
strategies and programmes in low- and middle-income countries
● UNICEF Innocenti’s research is part of the Gender-Responsive Age-Sensitive Social Protection
(GRASSP) research programme, funded with UK Aid by the UK Government
● Upcoming Output: “How gender-sensitive are national social protection strategies, policies and
programmes? Evidence from selected low- and middle-income countries”, Innocenti – UN
Women Joint Research Brief
7

7.
8

8.
Social protection programme: distinct framework
of rules to provide social protection benefits to
entitles beneficiaries (ILO 2017). Such rules would
specify the geographical and personal scope of the
programme.
National social protection strategy: Strategic
government document that sets out a medium- to
long-term vision for social protection; usually
provides an assessment of risks and vulnerabilities,
an overview of existing social protection
mechanisms, and a series of objectives for
increasing their reach and effectiveness; focuses on
establishing a set of priorities that will guide policy
implementation and assessment in the future.
Gender integration/ mainstreaming: “the process of
assessing the implications for women and men of any
planned action (legislation, policy or programme) to
ensure that concerns and experiences of women and
men form an integral part of the design, implementation,
monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes.
The ultimate goal of mainstreaming is to achieve gender
equality.” (ECOSOC 1997)
Gender risks and vulnerabilities: Social and economic
risks and vulnerabilities related to women’s and girls’
unequal access to resources, power and status in a given
context, which include gender-specific life course risks
(e.g. teenage pregnancy; maternity-related health and
income risks; single parenthood; widowhood; old age
poverty) and structural inequalities, such as violence
against women; women’s greater unpaid care and
domestic work burdens; and gender inequalities in
access to and control over resources beyond social
protection.

9.
Does the strategy
or programme
make reference to
International
human rights
standards? Does it
define gender
equality and
women’s
empowerment as
an objective?
Does the
strategy or
programme
recognize
gendered life
course risks and
structural
inequalities
recognized?
Does the strategy
or programme
include specific
actions or
programme
design features to
address gendered
risks and
vulnerabilities?
Does the M&E
framework
include gender-
specific
indicators? Are
participatory
M&E
mechanisms in
place? Are
grievance,
feedback and
complaint
mechanisms in
place?

10.
Methodology
11
Social protection strategies
• Sub-sample of 50 National Social
Protection Strategies (NSPS) in
LMICs
• Timespan of NSPS is from 2010
through 2020
• Gender analysis applying the
analytical framework
Social protection programmes
• Mapping of sub-sample of 40 social
protection programmes (non-
contributory and labour market
programmes, flagship programmes) in
LMICs focused on children, women and
their households
• Data and analysis before COVID-19
• Gender analysis applying the analytical
framework

11.
Legend:
Countries where either the
social protection strategy or a
social protection programme
has been assessed
Countries where both the
social protection strategy and
a social protection programme
have been assessed

12.
13

13.
Significant gaps covering
women’s vulnerabilities in
old age and, in some
regions, adolescence.
12
18
24
39
28
24
17
6

14.
• Only 14 out of 50 strategies commit to
specific actions to reduce, recognise or
redistribute unpaid care
• As little as 15 strategies foresee specific
actions to address violence against women
• 26 out of 50 strategies detailed specific
actions at redressing women’s lack of
access to assets or resources
26 out of 50
39 out of 50
15 out of 50
30 out of 50
14 out of 50
20 out of 50
SPECIFIC MEASURES
RECOGNITION
SPECIFIC MEASURES
RECOGNITION
SPECIFIC MEASURES
RECOGNITION
LESSCONTROL
OVERRESOURCESVAWGUNPAIDCARE

15.
• 24 out of 50 reviewed strategies included
plans for participatory M&E mechanisms
• Only 17 out of 50 included gender-specific
indicators in their M&E framework
• Only 13 out of 50 fore saw the establishment
of grievance, feedback and complaint
mechanisms
29 strategies
out of 50
28 out of 50
18 of 50
8 out of 50
International
actors (donors,
agencies)
National civil
society
National gender
equality
mechanisms
National workers'
and employers'
respresentatives

16.
17

17.
Of the 40 programmes analysed:
• Only eight refer to international human rights standards
 However, only two programmes refer to gender-specific frameworks (e.g.
CEDAW)
• Only seven refer to national constitutions or other statutory mandates on
human rights.
• Almost all are enshrined in national legal frameworks
 However, few programmes referred to national strategies with gender equality
and women’s empowerment at their core
• Only five explicitly refer to gender equality or women’s empowerment as an
objective
• Twenty-five refer to child rights as an explicit objective

18.
• The majority of social protection
programmes sought to address poverty,
and risks to household income related to
childbirth
• Maternity (14/40), unemployment (12/40),
and disability (11/40) followed
• Half (20) acknowledge and seek to
address nutritional needs of children, and
in some cases of mothers
• Over half (21) of programmes
acknowledge barriers to education,
although few (8) with explicit reference to
the gendered nature of such barriers to
education
2
13
4
4
2
1
18
1
8
7
3
9
10
2
1
4
2
3
2
1
1
1
1
1
2
1
Nutritional needs
Adolescent pregnancy
Gendered barriers or gaps in
education
Maternity related health risks
Maternity related income risks
Single motherhood
Widowhood
Orphans
Old age
Others
Unclear Yes
Yes - Gender-sensitive Yes - Gender-responsive

19.
• Only 3 programmes explicitly recognize
violence against women and girls,
although only 2 of them set forth actions
to address it
• 4 programmes acknowledged unpaid care
and domestic work, while only 2 set forth
actions to address it
• 9 programmes explicitly recognize
women’s and girls’ more limited access to
resources. However, one fourth of
programmes claimed to economically
empower women only because they are
targeting them
1
2
1
4
11
3
1
1
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
6
2
1
1
Acknowledgement
Action
Acknowledgement
Action
Acknowledgement
Action
Violenceagainst
womenandgirls
Unpaidcareand
domesticwork
Lessaccessto
resources
Unclear
Yes
Yes - Gender-sensitive
Yes - Gender-responsive
Yes - Gender-transformative

20.
Out of 40 social protection programmes analysed:
• Targeting women and girls is mostly on grounds of poverty (18/40), disability
(11/40), minority (7/40), and as single women, heads of households or widows
(7/40)
 However, only few programmes, mostly public works, explicitly seek to close the
social protection coverage gaps between women/girls and men/boys, via for
example including quotas for women
• Of the 18 conditional programmes, 8 were designed with conditionalities that
risk being punitive, especially for women, and for 6 the extent to which
conditionalities were punitive or not was unclear
• Only 3 programmes explicitly considered gender issues related to accessibility of
registration and enrollment processes for women and girls
• Only 5 programmes explicitly consider gender issues related to benefits’ or
services’ transfer modalities and mechanisms. For another 9 programmes it was
unclear
• Only 12 programmes specifically link to information or refer to other benefits or
services, but not necessarily through specific gender considerations.

21.
Out of 40 programmes analysed:
• Only for 13 programmes information was found on the M&E systems
• Only 6 programmes reported collecting sex- and age-disaggregated data
• 4 of these programmes also reported collecting data on gender-specific
indicators
• Information about the existence of grievance, feedback and complaint
mechanisms was only found for one fourth of social protection programmes

22.
24
• Many national social protection strategies and
programmes around LMICs commit to gender
equality and acknowledge gendered risks and
vulnerabilities
• However, they rarely provide for specific actions
to address such risks and vulnerabilities.
• Only a minority of social protection
programmes have design and delivery features
that account for gendered needs, risks and
vulnerabilities
• Governance, and monitoring and evaluation
(M&E) systems are inadequately gendered
• Social protection strategies and programmes should be
based on a robust assessment of the risks and
vulnerabilities, including those caused by structural
gender inequalities, and define specific actions to address
and transform these.
• COVID-19 has demonstrated the critical role social
protection can play at times of crises. It has also shown
how women and girls are disproportionately affected by
the socio-economic impact of the pandemic.
• Yet, the social protection and jobs response has been
largely gender-blind: only 10% of measures target
women’s economic security and only 8% of measures
addressing unpaid care.
• The development of national social protection strategies
provides an important opportunity to address these gaps
and work towards universal, gender- and shock-
responsive social protection systems, including
programmes that address the specific challenges faced by
women and girls

23.
•
•
•
•