May 2023 – March 2025 (finished)

The Perekhid Initiative was a UN, NGO, development partner and Government of Ukraine initiative to support the sustainable transition and absorption of humanitarian caseloads into an inclusive shock-responsive national social protection system.

STAAR’s support to the Perekhid initiative included providing leadership, strategic direction and overall management of the Perekhid Initiative’s Technical Assistance Facility (TAF), to support the sustainable transition and absorption of humanitarian caseloads into an inclusive shock-responsive national social protection system.

The Initiative provided a TAF embedded within the Government of Ukraine’s Ministry of Social Policy (MoSP), and accountable to a joint Steering Committee, to reform the country’s social protection system to increase capacity, adaptivity and shock responsiveness in response to the current context and potential future crises.

October 2022 – April 2023 (finished)

STAAR’s support was requested to support the SPIAC-B working group to fine tune the advocacy messages and strategy in line with the common principles for Linking Humanitarian Assistance and Social Protection.
STAAR’s support included conducting a review of existing literature and interviews with key stakeholders to inform these principles. Facilitated discussions within the working group helped refine the guidelines and advocacy strategies, ensuring a coordinated and effective approach to linking humanitarian assistance with social protection.
The SPIAC-B Working Group on Linking Humanitarian (Cash) Assistance and Social Protection aligned humanitarian efforts with social protection systems, focusing on disaster preparedness. This group, which brought together donors, INGOs, UN agencies, and IFIs, developed common principles to guide this integration, with cash transfers as a key entry point.

March 2024 – March 2025 (finished)

As part of a global partnership between the World Bank and the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) on social protection and humanitarian linkages in Fragile and Conflict-Affected Situations (FCAS), the FCDO, through the STAAR Facility, supported the World Bank’s social protection team in South Sudan through the provision of an embedded technical assistance (TA) adviser.

The adviser supported the creation of principled and meaningful linkages between humanitarian assistance and social protection. This included efforts to improve coordination across both sectors and to build capacity for the eventual establishment of a nationally led social protection system.

The TA helped place the concept of humanitarian–social protection linkages firmly on the agenda in South Sudan, fostered collaboration between key ministries, and revitalised national coordination structures that had been dormant since COVID-19. It created space for dialogue across technical and political actors, supported the reactivation of the national social protection working group, and helped establish initial linkages between humanitarian and development coordination groups.