Aleksandar Lazovski
Independent social policy consultant, based in Vienna.
Fifteen years advising governments, UN agencies and development partners on social policy and social protection reform, public finance for children, and humanitarian cash assistance. Work spans the Western Balkans, Türkiye, Eastern Europe, the Caribbean and Sub-Saharan Africa.
What I work on
-
Social protection system reform.
Legislation, governance, institutional arrangements, child-centred design.
-
Shock-responsive social protection and anticipatory action.
Readiness assessments, vertical and horizontal expansion of national schemes, humanitarian cash transfers using national systems, and linking early warnings to pre-agreed early action.
-
Public finance for children.
Fiscal space analysis, expenditure work, parliamentary engagement, PFM training tools.
-
Programme design, M&E and capacity development.
Operational manuals, SOPs, monitoring frameworks, training for government staff and UN colleagues.
Selected work
-
North Macedonia
Seven years leading UNICEF's social policy and social protection portfolio, anchoring the 2019 Laws on Social Protection and Child Protection, a redesigned income-tested child allowance, and a new ICF-based disability assessment model for children.
-
Türkiye
A readiness assessment of Türkiye's national social protection system for delivering humanitarian cash during shocks, drawing on the Syrian refugee response, the COVID-19 cash expansion and the 2023 earthquakes, with a sequenced four-pillar agenda.
-
Ukraine
Three-month emergency deployment in the early phase of the war to design and roll out humanitarian cash reaching roughly 50,000 households, channelled through Ukraine's national systems rather than a parallel humanitarian channel.
Recent writing
-
Triggers and Financing: The Missing Middle of Shock-Responsive Social Protection in Europe and Central Asia. Lessons from Kosovo
A short analytical piece on the gap between policy intent and operational reality in shock-responsive social protection across Europe and Central Asia, drawing on lessons from Kosovo's SRSP design work.
-
Fading Footprint: The UN's Risk of Irrelevance in the Western Balkans
A personal essay on the UN's diminishing footprint in the Western Balkans and the strategic implications of disengagement as the region moves through EU accession dynamics.
-
Shock-Responsive Social Protection in Kosovo: Guidelines
Kosovo's first national Shock-Responsive Social Protection Guidelines, developed in partnership with the Ministry of Finance, Labour and Transfers. Translates SRSP readiness findings into operational guidance for government and civil society on humanitarian cash transfers and crisis-responsive scale-up.
