Extending Social Protection to Migrant Workers: Exploratory Research and Policy Dialogue in the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries

The project will be informed by UN human rights instruments and ILO International Labour Standards for the protection of migrant workers. It will adopt an adaptive programming approach and follow an action-oriented research methodology. It will support national and bilateral policy dialogue followed by engagement with exploratory reform efforts to enhance access to social protection of migrant workers in selected countries, with the vision of being scalable and replicable (with the necessary contextual adaptations) in other GCC countries. With these goals in mind, the project will ensure the active engagement, at all stages, of governments of countries of origin and destination, representatives of migrant workers, and other relevant social partners, bolstering on-going partnerships and building on discussions in intergovernmental forums, such as the Abu Dhabi Dialogue and the Colombo Process, and ILO regional and global projects on labour migration, such as the FAIRWAY programme, the REFRAME or FAIR-II projects. The project is primarily informed by the discussions held during the high-level symposium on the Future of Work in the context of the Abu Dhabi Dialogue among the Asian Labour-Sending and Receiving Countries in April 2019, and is expected to highly contribute to the realization of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and of the 2020-21 ILO strategic framework. The overall expected impact of the project is that, by the end of the project, migrant workers in selected GCC countries have increased access to social protection as a result of enhanced awareness, improved design and implementation of social protection measures in countries of origin and in alignment with international standards. This will be attained by engagement along three complementary axes of work: (i) regional and national mappings of social protection provisions in the GCC countries, (ii) country level analysis of barriers to access to social protection for migrant workers and policy dialogue on opportunities for reform in selected countries, and (iii) technical assistance and support to reform efforts in selected areas.

Project symbol

RAB/20/01/CHE

Admin unit

RO-Arab States/DWT-Beirut

Start date

01/01/2021

End date

31/10/2024

Total allocation

1143103

Total expenditure

Status

Closed

1143103

Development Partners

Switzerland, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation

Country/Countries

Arab States - regional

Outcomes

Outcome 7: Universal social protection