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Social Protection

Investing in shock-responsive social protection systems builds resilience by helping citizens mitigate shocks and escape poverty. Social protection is concerned with protecting and helping those who are poor, vulnerable, marginalized or most at risk.

Approach

Social protection systems are typically comprised of four components:

  • Protection: social assistance or as non-contributory consumption smoothing assistance (i.e., cash or food transfers)
  • Prevention: social insurance or instruments that prevent the loss of income and assets (i.e., insurance, pensions, etc.)
  • Promotion: labor market interventions such as employment generation and livelihood promotion, as well as investments in human capital
  • Transformation: seeks to understand structural causes and drivers of vulnerability and address these systematically—and promotes agency, empowerment, social accountability, and social cohesion.

Momentum has been growing around the idea of making social protection more shock responsive and more closely linked to humanitarian response efforts. Doing so involves considering what the right balance is for humanitarian and development action in different places.

Evidence

A growing body of research shows the importance of safety nets in reducing household vulnerability. This is especially true when combining cash transfers with support to strengthen other resilience capacities, such as access to financial services and resilient livelihood pathways. When Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) and non-PSNP households in Ethiopia following a drought were compared, results showed PSNP households did better in absorbing the initial impact of the shock on their food security. PSNP households also did better in recovery to pre-drought food security status. Households with more than one hectare of land fared even better. Non-PSNP households with less than one hectare of land struggled. They were the most vulnerable to the initial impact of drought. They also had the slowest recovery.

More About Social Protection

Technical Guidance

Feed the Future and Conflict Integration: A Toolkit for Programming

23 May 2023 - USAID

As conflict is the largest driver of global food insecurity, this toolkit strives to ensure that all Feed the Future Initiatives integrate conflict sensitivity.

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Event

Strengthening resilience against shocks and stressors in L&MICs

11 May 2023, GMT +1 - British Expertise , 3ie

Hear how experts will discuss the rationale behind 3ie’s latest evidence gap map and delve into the implications of the findings.

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Report

A New Approach to Labor Market Assessments

26 Apr 2023 - USAID , Implementer-Led Design, Evidence, Analysis and Learning (IDEAL)

Examine how Systems Labor Market Assessments identified on- and off-farm opportunities for rural households in Zimbabwe and Haiti.

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Event

Resilience Evidence Forum

20 Jun 2023, GMT +3 - Global Resilience Partnership

Join the Global Resilience Partnership for a three-day, interactive gathering to discuss what works and what doesn’t in building resilience.

View Event
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