This blog article is an executive summary of the following report: Research on the Links between Social Work in Social Protection and Relevant Aid Programmes in the Middle East – focusing on Jordan, Lebanon and Türkiye
A consultancy project by the Global Social Service Workforce Alliance for the Danish Refugee Council
Government investment in sustainable, inclusive and effective social protection systems across the Middle East has been limited by the multiple political crises, civil unrest, armed conflicts and overall instability afflicting the region over the past decade. In the wake of the 2014 Syria crisis, governments have instead increasingly relied on reactive and narrow targeted humanitarian assistance, leading to parallel systems for refugees and displacement-affected communities that lack integration and coordination with existing national social protection strategies and long-term development objectives. A further constraint that has emerged through the Danish Refugee Council (DRC)’s engagement with national social protection systems across the region is the inadequate attention to and integration of the social work pillar. Given its emphasis on protection activities for refugees and displacement-affected populations, particularly through case management, the DRC commissioned the Global Social Service Workforce Alliance (GSSWA) to examine the strength of social work systems in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkiÿe in terms of legal regulation, capacity development and support for the workforce along with the extent to which social work in the three focus countries has effectively integrated with wider social protection systems in order to identify programming entry points and policy reforms to enhance their efficiency. Drawing on key informant interviews (KIIs) with relevant State and aid stakeholders in each country in addition to desk review sources, the study shows that, when integrated together, the benefits of social work and other forms of social protection can be mutually reinforcing — with expanded coverage, enhanced outcomes and optimized resources for both.
Jordan has made some notable progress over the past decade toward more inclusive and equitable social protection, alongside efforts to professionalize and integrate social work, despite ongoing gaps and challenges. The right to work, together with social security coverage, was extended to Syrian refugees in 2015 under the Jordan Compact. More recently, however, the cost of Syrians’ basic work permits dramatically increased from 10JD to 460JD in 2024, all the while non-Syrian refugees remain excluded from national social protection programmes. Efforts to plan and develop Jordan’s social service workforce have been meanwhile evident in the enhancement of education and qualifications, development of a state-approved social work curriculum, and passing of the 2024 Social Development Law for licensing in social work, among others. Some challenges persist nonetheless, including the new law’s unclear definitions and requirements for social work. Jordan, moreover, stands to benefit from a range of local directorates and National Aid Fund (NAF) centres that provide integrated protection — including health coverage and social assistance in the form of cash transfers — along with case management support to facilitate service access and referrals, but the effective linkage of social work with other social protection services is hindered by underdeveloped referral systems and the shortage of qualified social workers, leading to unequal service access for beneficiaries unfamiliar with the system, assessment errors and biases, as well as overlooked complex needs. The centralised, top-down system of the Ministry of Social Development (MoSD)’s service delivery and oversight also weaken coordination efforts with NGOs, which predominantly provide the services for survivors/victims of gender-based violence (GBV).
Meanwhile, Lebanon’s social protection system remains fragmented despite recent promising developments with the launch of the National Social Protection Strategy (NSPS) and National Disability Allowance (NDA). Reflecting system-wide challenges, most of the current social service workforce is employed by, and therefore reliant on, NGOs and humanitarian programmes due to public service recruitment freezes, government outsourcing of services, and the increased humanitarian response to the Syria crisis. Although the workforce in NGOs benefits from regular one-on-one supervision, unlike its counterpart in the public sector, professional advantages are outweighed by the short-term nature of programmes and posts, which hampers consistent and sustained practice and follow-up with beneficiaries as a result. The overall social service workforce in Lebanon enjoys a relatively high degree of professionalisation, but further progress is hindered by social work’s lack of legal definition and regulation. On a community-level, Social Development Centres (SDCs), run by the Ministry of Social Affairs (MoSA), are key points of access for integrated social protection services in all of Lebanon’s districts, including the most remote rural areas. The clientelistic management of SDCs, however, has exacerbated public distrust along with limited coordination with the State. A major compensating factor — while also a further fragmentation — is the presence of strong local CSOs and community-led organisations across much of the country, with certain beneficiary groups self-organising to advocate for their needs and provide basic services such as social work, care and in-kind support.
In light of its main findings, the study emphasizes that social work support — when integrated with social protection systems, and strengthened in its capacity, reach and effectiveness — enables a truly needs-led and person-centred approach in which social work relieves beneficiaries of the stress, time and effort of navigating a complex and often changing array of services that is usually available but not always easy to access due to physical, social, cultural and identity-based barriers. Social work can also ensure that a family or individual benefits from a continually adjusted combination of services that can address immediate needs and risks, including non-financial structural disadvantages, all while avoiding duplication of efforts and ultimately supporting pathways to dignity, long-term self-reliance, and resilience. The study thus reveals strong potential for the DRC — building on its existing credibility, partnerships and coordinating role — to strengthen the integration of social protection systems with social work support, and to improve the effectiveness and accessibility of social protection services for displacement-affected populations through programmatic and advocacy strategies in concert with other aid actors. These include:
- Strengthening social work as a profession and the wider social service workforce through government-led national coordination mechanisms — joined and supported by civil society actors and international humanitarian organisations — to plan, develop and support the workforce. Such efforts would initially require a national leadership group to first agree upon a national definition of the social service workforce and to then map the workforce in terms of its current numbers, and capacity strengths and weaknesses, among others. Efforts are also required in areas such as coordinating training routes into professional social work and career paths that can attract both new recruits and experienced staff.
- Advocating for longer-term funding for social work services linked to social protection.
- Strengthening DRC’s protection-adapted graduation approach, to set an example of how displacement-affected populations can transition to national social protection systems.
- Building the learning and evidence base for effective social protection integrated with social work through advocating for and supporting the development of information management systems for case management, and participatory monitoring, evaluation and learning mechanisms (MEAL) at the programme level, since such evidence is currently weak and patchy.
[*] Acknowledgment: This executive summary was written by Nadi Farag, Social Protection Program Intern at the Arab Reform Initiaive (ARI).
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