SPACE Social protection for migrants and refugees

This paper describes the current practice of providing social protection to refugees and migrants with regular immigration status in low and middle-income destination countries. While informal social protection provided by family or community members is important, especially in contexts of low state capacity, this paper’s focus is on formal providers of social protection, such as state institutions and development and humanitarian actors. Development and humanitarian actors often complement government-provided social protection with cash assistance or livelihood programmes targeted especially at refugees. While reference to some high-income countries will be made, the paper focuses on low- and middle-income countries.