Living policy Labs: A case study of collaborative dialogue about social protection to alleviate grievances and facilitate peaceful outcomes in Egypt

Social protection may be regarded as the conduit for governments to end poverty (SDG1) and in turn maintain civil order/peace. However, how social protection is conceptualized alongside poverty ideology (who/what causes it and whose responsibility it is to relieve it) can negatively impact the development of social protection programs to the extent that they do not meet the social and economic needs of beneficiaries/end-users. Underpinning these views are social and political dynamics that reflect a wide range of sometimes opposing interests and social divisions. Thus, social protection inadvertently risks becoming a conduit to conflict rather than peace. In this paper we report on a living policy lab (LPL) we developed in Cairo (Egypt) to help mitigate this risk. The aim of the LPL was to facilitate dialogue between various stakeholders to support collaboration towards policy-making. First, we present an in-depth review of extant literature, discussing the viability of a ‘living policy lab’ approach to social policy making in MENA countries such as Egypt that are susceptible to conflict. Using Egypt as our focus, we critically outline its evolution of non-targeted to targeted programs and initiatives to alleviate poverty, arguing that they have been reactive and piecemeal rather than thought through (except for the universal health insurance system). We then examine findings from a project in Egypt involving a series of interrelated living policy labs (2018–2019) on social protection reform that involved a range of social actors. The aim was to explore whether, as a design process, the approach might offer an alternative shared power model that facilitates agreed policy priorities and in so doing mediates peace. In this way, we add to the scholarship on social protection by considering to what extent new approaches to policy making in contexts of conflict can support more sustainable and peace-promoting social protection interventions. We end the paper by providing recommendations in terms of research, policy and practice particularly in relation to future possibilities for consultative design theory.