Open Data, Shared Power!

Advocating for policy change requires research, and research requires data. With the launch of the Data Hub, we are proud to open our archives and provide the Arab region with the transparent, ethical evidence necessary to build resilient social protection systems for all.

Reliable, region-specific data is one of the biggest gaps facing researchers, advocates, and policymakers working on social protection in the Arab region, and one of the barriers to building the equitable, sustainable systems the region needs. The Data Hub exists to help close that gap. Here, we publish datasets generated through ARI, the Hub, and our partners, made freely available to anyone working to understand, strengthen, or advocate for social protection in the region. Our goal is to support home-grown research: data produced by and for the Arab region, reflecting its realities rather than filling them in with assumptions borrowed from elsewhere.

Embracing open research practice is essential to our mission. By sharing the original quantitative and qualitative data that drives our work, collected under the strictest ethical standards, we are reinforcing the Hub’s role as the premier resource on social protection in the region. This Data Hub bridges the gap between raw data and actionable policy, ensuring that the evidence we gather serves as a public good for the entire region.

“Transformative policy change demands rigorous research, and rigorous research demands accessible data. By launching the Data Hub, we are committing to knowledge as a true public good. We are making our evidence openly available because securing equitable social protection across the Arab region starts with sharing the data needed to build it.” – Farah Al Shami, Senior Fellow and Program Director for Social Protection at the Arab Reform Initiative.

All data on the Data Hub is open source. You’re welcome to download, use, and build on it in your own research, journalism, advocacy, or policymaking. We only ask that you cite it properly, so the work behind it is recognized and the data can be traced back to its source.

We’re launching the Data Hub with four datasets, and this is only the beginning. As our research continues, we’ll keep expanding what’s available here, growing this into a lasting, shared resource for evidence-based social protection work across the region.

Qualitative Data

This dataset comes from Finance4All, a project examining how financing choices shape social protection in the Arab region, and who gets left out as a result. It brings together first-hand insights from Key Informant Interviews and a Focus Group Discussion conducted in Lebanon with academics, policy practitioners, legal experts, economists, and civil society advocates working directly with margianalized communities. This dataset shares the raw, original research material itself: the perspectives and testimonies that inform ongoing work on how conventional financing, shaped by institutions like the World Bank and IMF, has entrenched fragmentation in Lebanon’s social protection system, and what alternative paths, from progressive taxation to debt restructuring, might look like instead. Interviewees are identified by anonymized codes to protect their identities while preserving the depth and specificity of what they shared. This dataset is freely available for researchers, journalists, and advocates to use in their own work, provided it is cited as: Arab Reform Initiative (ARI), 2026, and referenced as: “Alternative Financing for Universal Social Protection in the Arab Region: A Qualitative Research Synthesis.” Arab Reform Initiative (ARI). 2026. URL: https://socialprotection.arabregionhub.net/alternative-financing-for-universal-social-protection-in-the-arab-region-a-qualitative-research-synthesis/.

This dataset comes from FORWARD, a project examining how two forces reshaping today’s labor markets, the rapid spread of digital technologies (including AI) and the shift to a low-carbon economy, are colliding with decades of neoliberal policy to transform work in Lebanon, and exposing the gaps in existing social protection along the way. It shares first-hand insights from Key Informant Interviews with a deliberately wide range of voices: labor law and labor rights experts, specialists in the gendered dimensions of gig and platform work, green transition and energy economists, digitalization and digital security analysts, social protection policy specialists, and advocates working with groups too often left out of labor-market research, including LGBTQI+ communities and older persons. This is raw, original research material highlighting perspectives that inform ongoing work on how Lebanon’s informal labor market, outdated 1946 labor law, and underfunded National Social Security Fund are being reshaped by digital and green transitions. Interviewees are identified by anonymized codes to protect their identities while preserving the depth of what they shared. This dataset is freely available for researchers, journalists, and advocates to use in their own work, provided it is properly cited as: “Arab Reform Initiative [ARI], 2026”, thereafter “ARI, 2026” and referenced as: “Ahwach, D. The Future of Work and Social Protection in Lebanon: A Qualitative Research Synthesis.” Arab Reform Initiative (ARI). 2026. URL: https://socialprotection.arabregionhub.net/the-future-of-work-and-social-protection-in-lebanon-a-qualitative-research-synthesis/”.

Quantitative Data

This dataset brings together the original survey findings behind FORWARD and Finance4All, based on a field survey of 401 working-age adults across Beirut, the North, Bekaa, and the South of Lebanon. Unlike the qualitative datasets already on the Data Hub, this one is quantitative: real numbers on how people are living through Lebanon’s overlapping crises, from job losses tied to automation and the shift to a green economy, to the everyday toll of inflation, tax hikes, and shrinking public services. The survey deliberately reached beyond the general population to include informal workers, persons with disabilities, migrants, and refugees, so the numbers reflect the people most exposed to these risks rather than an average that hides them. It covers everything from income and employment status to social protection coverage, debt, coping strategies, and what people themselves say they need, alongside verbatim quotes that put a human voice behind the statistics. The raw dataset, sampling framework, and survey questionnaire are also available for anyone who wants to dig deeper or run their own analysis. This dataset is freely available for researchers, journalists, and advocates to use in their own work, provided it is properly cited as: “Arab Reform Initiative [ARI], 2026”, thereafter “ARI, 2026”, and referenced as: “Al Shami, F. Forward-Looking Universal Social Protection in the Arab Region: The Future of Work and Alternative Financing Mechanisms. Arab Reform Initiative (ARI). 2026. URL: https://socialprotection.arabregionhub.net/forward-looking-universal-social-protection-in-the-arab-region-the-future-of-work-and-alternative-financing-mechanisms/.”

Perceptions and Trajectories of Youth in Baghdad, Al-Basra, and Mosul after the 2014 Conflict with ISIS

This dataset captures how a generation of Iraqi youth has navigated life in the shadow of conflict. Based on an in-person survey of 676 young people (aged 18–28) across Baghdad, Al-Basra, and Nineveh-Mosul, it looks at how the 2014 war with ISIS shaped their education, employment, and livelihoods, their political participation and civic life, and deeply personal choices around marriage, mental health, and family. The survey deliberately oversampled minority communities, including Christians and Black Iraqis, so their experiences aren’t lost in the averages. What makes this dataset distinct is its attention to the gap between perception and reality: youth were asked not only what happened to them, but what they believe caused it, revealing that many downplay the conflict’s role in general terms even while describing its concrete impact on their lives in detail. This dataset is freely available for researchers, journalists, and advocates to use in their own work, provided it is properly cited as: “Arab Reform Initiative [ARI], 2022”, thereafter “ARI, 2022”, and referenced as: “Al Shami, F. (2022). Perceptions and Trajectories of Youth in Baghdad, Al-Basra, and Mosul after the 2014 Conflict with ISIS: Survey Findings. Arab Reform Initiative (ARI). URL: https://www.arab-reform.net/publication/perceptions-and-trajectories-of-youth-in-baghdad-al-basra-and-mosul-after-the-2014-conflict-with-isis/.”