Who We Are
OUR STORY
Laying the groundwork: SPACE
Funded by FCDO, GIZ, and DFAT, the SPACE service provided rapid technical support to governments, donors, and implementing partners in over 30 countries during the COVID-19 crisis. Its expert team produced seminal guidance and frameworks that continue to shape the sector — paving the way for what would become STAAR.
Delivering tailored support from country to global level…
Through direct support to governments, development partners, and humanitarian actors, STAAR has delivered assistance ranging from country-specific strategies and roadmaps to global guidance, events, and training. Our work spans both inclusive and crisis-responsive social protection, covering themes such as gender equality, localisation, climate and shock responsiveness, conflict, disability inclusion, and humanitarian–development linkages.
2020-2021
2022
2022–2024
2025
STAAR is launched to support more inclusive and crisis-ready systems…
Funded by FCDO and building on the work of SPACE, STAAR provides expert advice, technical assistance, and resources to expand and improve investments in gender-responsive social protection and social protection approaches in crisis settings.
Driving uptake and sharing learning…
In our final year, we focus on helping partners apply and expand assistance already developed, while synthesising and sharing lessons to strengthen future social protection responses.
Why strong, inclusive and adaptive social protection
matters in crisis?
Social protection systems are increasingly being called on to respond to major crises – from conflict and displacement to COVID-19 and the impacts of climate change. In these moments, access to timely, reliable support can determine whether individuals and communities recover – or are pushed deeper into poverty and vulnerability.
Countries with strong, routine social protection systems are better equipped to manage and absorb shocks. When systems have:
- Good coverage (reaching a wide proportion of the population)
- Comprehensiveness (addressing a range of risks and needs)
- Adequacy (providing meaningful levels of support)
…they are more likely to protect people’s wellbeing, maintain stability, and respond effectively when crises hit. These systems can also adapt – expanding or adjusting benefits and services to meet increased needs as situations evolve
Making Social Protection Work Better
for Women and Girls
Social protection can be a powerful tool to empower women and girls and promote gender equality. Well-designed systems can increase women’s income, assets, and decision-making power; reduce violence against women; help girls stay in school; delay early marriage and pregnancy; and ensure economic and social security later in life.
But not all social protection is gender-aware. Systems exist along a gender continuum – from those that are gender-discriminatory or gender-blind (actively excluding women and girls, or unintentionally ignoring their needs), to those that are gender-responsive and even transformative.
At the transformative end of the continuum, social protection recognises and responds to gendered needs and challenges the root causes of inequality. This includes:
- Labour market interventions to increase women’s income-earning capacity
- Flexibility in working hours and maternity/paternity benefits
- Support for the redistribution of care work
- Programmes that challenge harmful social norms limiting women’s participation in the workforce
By shifting further along this continuum, social protection can move from simply meeting needs to actively reshaping the systems and structures that hold inequality in place.
Social protection can do more than reduce poverty - it can shift power and transform lives
Gender-discriminatory programmes may actively exclude women, girls and persons with other gender identities.
Gender blind programmes do not consider women’s, girls’ or gender diverse persons’ gendered needs, for example, pensions which do not account for women’s interrupted employment due to care responsibilities.
Gender-sensitive programmes are those that recognise gender differences, so they employ a basic level of gender-sensitivity but gender concerns are not the primary objective. For example, they can incorporate quotas to enhance women’s participation or collect gender-disaggregated data on programme participation and outcomes.
Gender-responsive programmes explicitly address the needs of women, girls and gender diverse people. These programmes are informed by a gender analysis and respond to the challenges women, girls and gender diverse people face in accessing and benefitting from social protection. For example, cash for work programmes that include women as programme participants, ensure they are paid the same as men and have creche services available so that mothers can work while their children are cared for.
Gender transformative programmes aim to transform unequal gender relations and address the structural and root causes of inequality and discrimination through a social protection intervention. They build the resilience of women, girls and in certain contexts, of gender diverse people by overcoming structural barriers. Examples include cash transfers that are complemented with behaviour change communication interventions to shift norms around women’s access to, control over and ownership of resources.
That’s where STAAR comes in
We exist to help governments, development partners, and humanitarian actors expand and improve investments in social protection – making them more gender-responsive, inclusive, and crisis-ready. Through technical assistance, advice, and practical resources, we support efforts to design and adapt systems that meet people’s needs, respond to shocks, and contribute to lasting change.