"Social Protection Reform in North Macedonia since 2019: Effects and Sustainability"

The aim of the analysis was to review the elements of the reform and evaluate its practical implementation, assessing the direct impact it had on the target beneficiaries, as well as the long-term effects and sustainability of the reform. The authors who worked on this analysis are Dr. Paul Stubbs and Prof. Dr. Vancho Uzunov.

Dr. Paul Stubbs emphasized that the social reform was a bold initiative that made significant progress over four years with the introduction of guaranteed minimum assistance, noting a more than 40% increase in the number of households receiving benefits. "The goal of increasing coverage has been achieved. There are many more people benefiting from Guaranteed Minimum Assistance than in the previous social cash assistance system," said Dr. Stubbs, citing the analysis.

The goal of achieving greater efficiency has also largely been met. The average amount of social assistance transfers has more than doubled, from about 3,000 denars before the reform to over 7,000 denars per beneficiary after the reform.

Prof. Dr. Vancho Uzunov highlighted that social assistance is equally important for both wealthy and poor citizens, and this understanding needs to be widespread. "The number of beneficiaries has increased, the amount of money they receive has also increased. The distribution method has been improved, yielding many positive effects. In a state in the 21st century, this should be an unstoppable task. We have a good example of how, after a good reform, a real evaluation is done to see what has been achieved and what comes next. This was a very good reform of the social protection system from 2019. It then faced challenges such as inflation and the prior COVID pandemic, showing that the reform was flexible enough to mitigate these consequences," Uzunov pointed out.