This trilingual glossary aims to promote a common understanding and usage of key social protection terminology to reduce ambiguity. While far from complete and expected to evolve over time, the glossary aims to reduce complexity for policy makers and technical experts across the language barriers by using a plain language for definitions and accurate translations into Arabic and French, using the United Nations (UN) standard vocabulary. The definitions and concepts included in the glossary were selected from the daily practice of the social protection themes at UNESCWA, in addition to those commonly used in relevant literature.

It should be noted that this edition of the Glossary of Social Protection Terms is the first one and will be continuously revised and updated in line with developments in the language and technical vocabulary of social protection.