Child poverty in Somalia: The case for social protection

Social protection is currently seen as one of the most important mechanisms against poverty in development-related studies. Social protection tools, which has became popular as a policy intervention against poverty in Latin American countries, gradually spread over in Sub-Saharan African countries. Taking into account the vast experience about social protection generated in the context of poverty reduction, the importance of social protection is clearly expressed as a goal in the Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the United Nations. Based on this general situation, this study proposes a social protection program for the children living in poor households in the context of Somalia. Drawing on child-sensitive and life cycle-based social protection approaches, the work focuses on social protection tools targetting children's most vulnerable period. At the same time, the study addresses the context-specific problems emerging in the implementation of child-focused social protection tools in the context of Somalia, and henceforth extensively analyses the solutions that could be employed.