STREAM - Extending Social Protection to migrant workers and their families in the South Asia-Gulf Corridor

Project details

• Objectives

  The STREAM programme seeks to contribute to the progressive realization of the right to social protection for migrant workers and their families by pursuing the following interrelated objectives:

  • Promote inclusive and gender-responsive legal and policy frameworks that ensure access to social protection for migrant workers across the migration cycle, in line with international labour standards and human rights principles.
  • Strengthen the design, financing, and administration of national social protection systems to facilitate the inclusion of migrant workers in social protection schemes, with a focus on portability and continuity of benefits across borders.
  • Enhance the effective access of migrant workers and their families to social protection benefits through simplified administrative procedures, improved awareness, grievance mechanisms, and coordinated service delivery.
  • Foster cross-border and regional cooperation between countries of origin and destination to support bilateral and multilateral arrangements that ensure the transferability and sustainability of social protection entitlements.
  • Empower institutions, social partners, and civil society actors to engage in evidence-based dialogue, policy development, and monitoring, ensuring that the voices and needs of migrant workers, particularly women, are reflected in social protection reforms.

  The programme applies a gender-transformative lens, recognizing the unique vulnerabilities faced by women migrant workers, especially in sectors such as domestic work and care. It aims to ensure that social protection systems are not only accessible but also responsive to the needs and experiences of both women and men, on both ends of the corridor.

• Outcomes

  To reach this goal, the Program is structured around the attainment of four main outcomes in the course of the 4-year program duration:

  • Outcome 1 - Policy and regulatory reforms for migrant inclusive and gender sensitive social protection systems across the South-Asian-Gulf corridor are adopted.
  • Outcome 2 - Effective and inclusive access to existing and new social protection provisions is enhanced for women and men migrant workers.
  • Outcome 3 - Dialogue and coordination between GCC and South Asian countries on the social protection for migrant workers is strengthened with fair representation of women.
  • Outcome 4 - A new evidence base enhances advocacy capacities for a gender -sensitive social protection for migrant workers across the South-Asian-Gulf corridor.
    
• Focus

  The programme focuses on the extension of core protection mechanisms across the following key contingencies:

  • Employment injury compensation
  • Health insurance
  • Maternity and paternity benefits
  • Unemployment insurance
  • End-of-service indemnities

  And in the following thematic areas

  • Social protection for workers in new forms of employment, including platform workers
  • Social protection for domestic workers and the care economy
  • Social protection for a just climate transition
  • Portability and exportability of benefits across borders