A virtual workshop series of the Social Protection Cash and Voucher Assistance Thematic Working Group (SPCVA TWG), supported by the International Labour Organization, explored how partners can better meet the needs of the Palestinian people by delivering assistance in more efficient, effective, collaborative and coordinated ways across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus.
Bringing together representatives of the Ministry of Social Development and humanitarian cash actors, the six workshops reflected on the Thematic Working Group's successes so far, highlighted challenges and needs in the current context, and defined the top priorities for SPCVA nexus coordination in 2024 and 2025.
Dr Samah Hamad, Palestinian Minister of Social Development, opened and closed the workshop series by welcoming the collaboration of international organizations and donors to meet soaring needs in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank through cash assistance for the most vulnerable families and individuals. "The situation in Palestine is completely different from the situation anywhere else in the world. With the war, we have to treat all households in the Gaza Strip as vulnerable. What is important is to support all of the Palestinian people," said Dr Hamad, Minister of Social Development. "Providing cash assistance support will help the most vulnerable - women, children, older persons, and persons with disabilities - sustain themselves and meet their needs."
The Minister highlighted the importance of increasing the funds for cash assistance, fostering stronger partnerships and greater coordination, as well as capacity strengthening within the Ministry of Social Development. "We welcome [opportunities to] develop our capacity at the Ministry, including the skills of our staff and how they coordinate their work with humanitarian actors to make the system more operational and efficient," the Minister noted.
"The severity of the crisis over the past months has fundamentally changed how we work. We have had to reconsider how to deliver and scale up assistance," said Jonathan Whittall, interim Head of Office of OCHA. "These workshops have been very timely as they reaffirm the need for international and national actors to work together, in partnership."
To make assistance for the Palestinian people more efficient across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus, workshop participants agreed on two important priorities for 2024 and early 2025 - data-sharing and governance, and programmatic and strategic coherence. They identified what needs to change in these areas, and co-created a vision of how to change in order to effectively meet the needs of the Palestinian population together. They agreed on the need to:
- Form a Task Team on Data-sharing and Governance to map data flows and establish a joint minimum core data set required to deliver cash assistance.
- Sign data-sharing agreements between humanitarian actors and the Ministry of Social Development to access core data on vulnerable Palestinian people eligible for cash assistance and increase efficiency in targeting.
- Review existing de-duplication mechanisms and potential platforms in terms of appropriateness, overseeing authority, and overlapping definitions.
- Develop a roadmap for a triple-strand social safety net (3SSN) at a senior leadership level of the Ministry of Social Development, UNRWA and WFP, by creating a Steering Committee.
- Increase coordination, joint planning and the delivery of cash assistance through regular operational exchanges between international humanitarian and national cash actors.
- Support and collaborate on strengthening the national system - the Palestinian Authority's National Cash Transfer Programme (NCTP) and social allowances, implemented by the Ministry of Social Development - by improving coverage, expanding the national social registry, improving the adequacy of cash transfer amounts, testing innovative delivery mechanisms, and scaling-up donor advocacy for increase funding for humanitarian and national cash assistance.
Nexus actors jointly launched the Social Protection and Cash and Voucher Assistance Thematic Working Group (SPCVA TWG) in 2022 as a pioneering new coordination mechanism. Co-led by OCHA and the Palestinian Ministry of Social Development, with the ILO as technical support/advisor, the Thematic Working Group has progressively enabled constructive dialogue, strengthened reciprocal trust, and developed small-scale solutions to practical problems (such as data-sharing) that had previously prevented alignment between national, humanitarian and development programmes in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. This workshop series took place as part of the European Union (EU)-funded joint project, "Strengthening nexus coherence and responsiveness in the Palestinian social protection sector", currently being implemented by the ILO, UNICEF and Oxfam.
