Partner countries

The ten countries that were invited to participate in the Programme are: 

In Africa: Ethiopia, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, Togo and Zambia

In Asia: Cambodia, Indonesia, Kyrgyz Republic and Vietnam

Selection of partner countries

Existing mappings on the social protection situation in developing countries were used as background in the first selection round.  

The pre-identification was done according to the following criteria:

• Evidence of broad political and policy commitment by the host government
• Country reform needs and capacity
• The existing social protection extension plans, inter-ministerial collaboration, and social dialogue on social protection
• Country profile diversity in terms of sociological, economic and demographic profiles 
• Existing donor coordination on social protection in the country in question 
• Focus on countries where there were understood to be realistic opportunities to achieve good results

The selection of countries was demand-driven and based on specific requests by partner countries. The EU Delegations as well as the Finnish Embassies were consulted in the process and the questions of feasibility and logistics were also taken into account. The selection focused on lower and lower middle income countries in Africa and Asia.