WHY TRANSFORM?
TRANSFORM empowers learners to handle the complexities of their social protection systems, appreciate diversity and uniqueness, own and implement creative solutions suitable for their contexts.
OUR PEDAGOGICAL APPROACH
TRANSFORM’s action-based and experiential teaching methodology is centred on the promotion of change and transformation. It offers state of the art knowledge on social protection relevant to Arab countries within the working environment of participants.
Recognising that knowledge is already in the room, TRANSFORM seeks to highlight that knowledge in a structured manner. This constitutes the first step in the participants’ leadership journey, outlined through their personal commitments to establish change in their social protection programmes following the training.
HISTORY AND GOVERNANCE
In December 2021, the first ever Arab Social Protection Ministerial Forum culminated in a Declaration spelling out clear commitments to strengthen national social protection systems. Their realization will require substantial investment in capacity development. Recognizing this need, the UN Regional Issue Based Coalition on Social Protection in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) set as a joint-UN objective the launch of a Regional Capacity building initiative on Social Protection.
TRANSFORM was developed in Sub- Saharan Africa since 2015 and has since established itself as one of the major capacity development platforms for social protection. In consideration of the quality and impact of the TRANSFORM initiative in Africa, UN partners under the Issue Based Coalition agreed to create a tailored capacity development programme for the Arab region, which would address recognize expertise and practices of the region and address its specificities and needs.
Since then, key steps have been undertaken to lay the foundations for a sustainable and impactful TRANSFORM Arab Region initiative. A TRANSFORM Arab Region Advisory Group was created to advise and support the development of the initiative. It currently consists of ILO and UNICEF (co-Chairs), UNDP, UNESCWA, and WFP. A Regional TRANSFORM Hub functions as secretariat of the Advisory Group and manages the implementation of regional activities, which includes support to national stakeholders to host a TRANSFORM training.
By building a network of social protection practitioners, professionals and experts from the Arab region and by providing a platform for dialogue, TRANSFORM promotes regional exchange, coalition building and contributes to strengthening of social protection systems in the Arab world.
In particular TRANSFORM partners are supporting a reform agenda in which social protection and decent work are central to reach poverty reduction and peace, aligned with objectives under the Global Accelerator. Through its learning packages TRANSFORM strives to enhance capacity and leadership of national stakeholders to realize policy synergies through sustainable extension of coverage and integrated approaches to build comprehensive social protection systems that speak to labour market dynamics.
WHAT IS DIFFERENT ABOUT TRANSFORM?
A strong regional orientation: developed by experts based in Africa and in the Arab Region.
A unique pedagogical approach with cutting-edge technical content focusing on leadership and transformation.
Promotion of regional training and facilitation expertise in social protection through a pool of accredited TRANSFORM Master Trainers.
A curriculum that is adaptable to context-specific circumstances and needs and that is freely accessible as a public good.
Focused on filling the “implementation gap”, faced by practitioners engaged in administration and governance of social protection.
An inter-agency collaborative spirit, guided by regional Advisory Group of like-minded partner agencies committed to social protection system strengthening.