Projects

Short Description:

Overall goal

UNICEF’s humanitarian strategy in Iran has a dual focus on improving psychosocial health, nutrition, and enabling access to education for the most vulnerable children during COVID-19, in line with efforts to develop a national roadmap to upscale the conditional cash transfer for current and other crises (natural & economic crises).

Expected results

1) Absorb children dropped out of school due to poverty, physical disability or lack of access to distance learning facilities during COVID-19. (support around 5,000 household with 12,000 children).

2) Empower/skills development for the unemployed heads of households(M/F) by technical vocational trainings (150 heads of households).

3) Development of a national roadmap based on real time monitoring and evaluation findings of the pilot to upscale the model for response during the natural & economic crises (shock responsive social protection to complement the Government's Universal Basic Income).

Target group / Beneficiaries

With Austria’s contribution of EUR 1 million, an estimated 70% (9,905 persons) of the total Program target group in the less advantaged province of Khouzestan (Southwest) will be supported: out of school children, disabled children, poor head of households with vulnerable children.

Local implementing Partners: Ministry of Cooperatives, Labour and Social Welfare (MCLSW). MCLSW as the main implementing partner at the national and provincial levels will coordinate this intervention with relevant national and local actors.

Activities

Activities may include, among others:

- Coordination: establish inter-organizational coordination within Govt Implementing partners

- Response analysis: conduct rapid situation analysis and need assessments. After the rapid analysis using UNICEF's cash transfer tool kits the value of transfer and the in-kind support will be identified based on the vulnerabilities of households.

- Program & operational design including setting cash transfer amounts and identifying In kind support based on rapid assessment

- Defining procurement strategy for In-kind support (wheelchair, tablet, etc.)

- Capacity building of UNICEF CO & provincial facilitators (including Training of Trainers and Vocational Training Organization for reaching the unemployed heads of households)

- Designing a real time monitoring system to ensure that the beneficiaries are receiving the transfers, in kind support and there is a complaint and grievance system in place both for beneficiaries and IP. Also, a pilot tested RTM system can be upscaled and used for future emergencies (national road map to upscale the pilot to make the social protection shock responsive)

- Conduct conditional cash transfer to targeted households for six months

- Conduct an evaluation of the process and approach

- Formulate an actionable roadmap to upscale a model at the national level during natural and economic crises.

Context

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically impacted the national economy already strained by the economic sanctions reinforced in 2018. This has adversely affected the Government's capacity to maintain public services, particularly social services, and provide timely emergency preparedness and response, particularly to the most vulnerable.

As the adaptive capacities and resilience of local communities’ decline, vulnerability to emergencies – and related humanitarian needs – are on the rise. The late 2019 analysis undertaken by the Ministry of Cooperatives, Labour and Social Welfare and UNICEF suggested that at the onset of the outbreak, 11.5 million households in less-developed areas and on the margins of major urban centers are under or just above the multidimensional poverty line; and 1 million of these households, urgently require humanitarian assistance.

As a result of the pandemic, the vulnerabilities of this population have been aggravated. Our technical and financial support will have a multiplier effect: Reaching poorest more rapidly/ efficiently and covering more people in need with better use of resources (PF4C).

Projections indicate that pandemic could reverse national achievements towards the Sustainable Development Goals. Hence this cash transfer scheme - which will be implemented by national Government with close supervision of UNICEF – will provide immediate relief for most vulnerable children who are deprived of basic services and access to education due to their households’ livelihood being severely impacted by the pandemic.