Social Protection for Climate-Disasters: Program Keluarga Harapan Cash Transfer Program
Read how a cash transfer program makes a difference in the lives of Indonesian families when climate change threatens their livelihoods.
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Climate change adversely impacts many aspects of the livelihoods of people living in poverty, especially those who depend on climate-sensitive sectors, such as agriculture. Additionally, smallholder farmer households (SFH) have fewer coping strategies against the negative impacts of climate change because of low levels of savings, lack of property insurance and poor access to public services. Therefore, external support, such as social protection (SP), is needed to protect their assets and livelihoods. An example of SP designed to strengthen the livelihoods of households living in poverty during disasters is the Program Keluarga Harapan (PKH) cash transfer program in Indonesia.
Protecting Smallholder Farmers’ Livelihood Capital
Coping strategies are linked to smallholder farmers’ livelihood capital, which is disrupted by climate change and includes the resources necessary for sustainable livelihoods. Livelihood capital can be used to understand whether a household has the strategies to cope with shocks or stress, including those caused by climate change. Subsequently, crosscutting interventions aimed at households living in poverty should support livelihood capital and improve the capacity to withstand climate change.
Moreover, SP is an approach used to reduce poverty by protecting livelihood capital and supporting the income and consumption of households living in poverty. As part of SP, livelihood capital including human, financial, social and physical capital, can enhance the welfare of households living in poverty, such as during disasters, and plays a significant role in adaptation strategies being adopted to cope with climate change. Therefore, livelihood capital is an intermediary determinant of how SP moderates the adverse effects of climate change.
The Impact of Program Keluarga Harapan
This study analyzes how the PKH contributes to disaster management in Indonesia with two objectives: identifying whether the PKH program helps SFH in developing coping strategies for climate change-related disasters and determining which factors of the PKH program enhance coping strategies among SFH. A mixed-methods approach using a confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling was applied to a dataset created from SFH questionnaire samples, followed by in-depth interviews.
According to the results, the PKH cash transfer program directly impacted the coping strategies and indirectly impacted the livelihood capital of SFH. Furthermore, the results indicated the key factors that support coping strategies, to which PKH contributes through counseling or mentoring sessions and provide access to other assistance and aid.
Key Takeaways
- Crosscutting intervention is needed to protect the poor when dealing with the natural disaster.
- SP like PKH cash transfer program help poor households to cope with natural disasters.
- Livelihood capital can be mediator between SP and coping strategies.
- PKH contributes to financial and social capital that are essential to encourage coping strategies.
- Integrating PKH into disaster risk reduction, and linking it with human and physical capital, will make it more efficient.