75759 March 2013 - Number 84 THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE ON EMPLOYMENT AND SOCIAL SAFETY NETS Diego F. Angel-Urdinalo, Ines Rodriguez Caillava, Amina Semlali1 Communities of Practice as Agents of Change: One promising channel to improve the design Introduction: Born out of the desire of various and implementation of social programs is to countries to share best practices and other foster south-south knowledge exchanges, lessons, Communities of Practice (CoPs) have which have proven to successfully contribute to become an effective mechanism to link groups reform of social programs and systems in other of practitioners to exchange operational developing regions. These knowledge knowledge for the design and implementation exchanges can take various formats; such as of social policies. The World Bank is now study tours, audio-conferences, workshops, and supporting and facilitating the establishment of e-platforms. During a virtual event organized the first community of practice in the MENA by the MENA Social Protection Department in region in the area of employment and social partnership with the Job Knowledge Platform2 safety nets. This community will provide a in January, 2013; Carolina Avalos, president of space where practitioners from MENA can the Social Investment Fund for Local share their operational experience, knowledge, Development of El Salvador, noted the and best practices on how best to improve operational importance of communities of delivery of social policy. practice: “the expertise we obtained from practitioners from Chile, Brazil, and Colombia; was Background: Post Arab Spring, many countries fundamental for the design, implementation, and in the region have begun to re-define, reform, evaluation of El Salvador’s conditional cash transfer and scale-up their social programs. Policy program: Red Solidaria�. Other practitioners from makers in MENA are eager to learn from each Africa and Europe and Central Asia who were other and to change the rules of the game, invited to share their experience added that while identifying best practices that can be active participation in their CoPs had adapted to their country’s context. This is contributed to also promote the “know-how� urgently needed because despite significant pertaining to the development of various investments devoted to employment and social technical tools, such as poverty maps. protection, many countries in the region are not able to effectively assist the unemployed in The MENA Community of Practice: On finding jobs nor are they able to protect January 16 and 17, 2013; a forum was held in vulnerable households from economic shocks Istanbul, Turkey, to kick-off the MENA and poverty (World Bank, 2012 and Angel- community of practice on employment and Urdinola et al., 2012). social safety nets. The event benefited from the participation of 20 directors of social assistance and employment agencies from seven MENA 1 Diego F. Angel-Urdinola, Amina Semlali and Ines Rodriguez Caillava work in the Social Protection Unit countries: Morocco, Tunisia, Jordan, Iraq, (MNSSP) of the Middle East and North Africa Region, the World Bank. This Quick Note was cleared Yasser El- 2 Gammal, Sector Manager, MNSSP. See (www.jobsKnowledge.org)) for more information. Lebanon, the Palestinian Territories, and Figure 2: What topics would you be most Yemen. This first meeting was an attempt to interested in learning about? gather an initial pool of practitioners in the region to define the topics to be discussed by this new community during this first year, and most importantly, to define the tools that will be employed to help and facilitate knowledge exchanges. Prior to the event, participants filled out a short survey aimed at assessing their interest in the initiative and identifying the main technical topics the community would focus on (Figures 1 and 2). After this initial meeting, participants agreed to appoint one focal point per country and to remain in contact. They also agreed to hold by-monthly knowledge sharing activities. Participants expressed that they would like to use Arabic as the official language of the CoP. During the forum, there was also a consensus among participants on the importance of fostering Social Protection Systems – whereby social safety nets and employment programs would not work in isolation but rather constitute a coherent and complementary mechanism to reduce poverty, mitigate risks, avoid dependency, and – most importantly – help individuals and families become self-dependent The role of technology: Technology constitutes though facilitating access to employment a critical building block, providing tools that opportunities. support community members in staying connected while acquiring/disseminating knowledge. Ultimately the goal is to create a Figure 1: Are You Interested in being part of a social network of practitioners that can learn, regional CoP on Employment and SSNs? ask questions, seek information, and access world-class experts, no matter where they are – using the internet and social media. Data collected though the survey given to MENA practitioners reveals that technology has the potential to serve as a mechanism to foster interactions and knowledge sharing in the region (Figure 3). The MENA community recently created a virtual network using the World Bank's Collaboration for Development Platform. Through this platform, practitioners can stay in contact with each other, initiate discussions, ask questions, and share information on regional best practices. Anyone interested in joining the community can register at: https://collaboration.worldbank.org/groups/mena- community-of-practice/. March 2013 · Number 84· 2 Figure 3: Potential of Technology to foster interaction among practitioners in MENA Roadmap and next steps: The Istanbul workshop was just the beginning of a series of activities the World Bank will facilitate throughout the year including bi-monthly virtual workshops, study tours, audio conferences, and development of a series of short operational policy notes on selected topics identified by participants. The MENA community will work in close coordination with many partners at the World Bank including the Human Development Network, whose role is to facilitate exchanges with other communities and access to world experts; and the Jobs Knowledge Platform, whose role is to provide technological and virtual platforms in order to facilitate social networking and information exchanges. This effort is led by MENA's Social Protection Department and is financed by the Middle East and North Africa Multi-donor Trust Fund ("MENA MDTF)3. 3 MENA MDTF is a World Bank administered technical assistance facility which provides catalytic support to countries in the MENA region that are currently undergoing historic transition and reform. Aside from the World Bank, funding is provided by Denmark, Finland, Norway and the UK. March 2013 · Number 84· 3