Innovative Approaches to Building Adaptive Social Protection Systems for Disaster Risk Reduction
Adaptive Social Protection This session showcased diverse approaches adopted by countries to build Adaptive Social Protection (ASP) systems that contribute to Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) objectives in the face of increased severity and frequency of natural hazards which are a constant threat to poverty reduction and resilience across the globe. Social Protection, which includes non-contributory social assistance; labor market programs and policies; contributory social insurance; and social services, supported by a range of delivery systems, is increasingly important to country poverty reduction strategies, with proven impacts. For instance, all categories of social protection programs globally have contributed to a reduction in the poverty gap by 33.69 percent, while non-contributory social assistance has helped reduced the poverty gap by 12.9 percent (World Bank, 2022). Despite this progress, every year, poor people are disproportionally affected by natural hazards and disasters, with millions of vulnerable households falling into poverty. There are three critical factors that exacerbate the impacts of disasters on the poor. Firstly, poor households are often more likely to be exposed to, and affected by hazards; secondly, they are more vulnerable to shock impacts, losing a larger share of their assets when affected; and finally, they are often less resilient, due to a reduced ability to cope with shock impacts and resorting to negative coping mechanisms when affected by shocks. Climate change will worsen these impacts, with recent research estimating that that up to 132 million people will be pushed into extreme poverty by climate change by 2030 (Hallegatte, S. et al. 2020). Recognizing the utility of social protection to address these challenges has led to countries to move beyond the regular provision of social protection benefits and services to ensuring Adaptive Social Protection (ASP), which helps to build the resilience of poor and vulnerable households by investing in their capacity to prepare for, cope with, and adapt to shocks. In doing so, ASP protects the wellbeing of households, and ensures that they do not fall into poverty or become trapped in poverty as a result of the impacts. ASP is organized around ASP that is composed of four building blocks—Programs, Data and Information Systems, Finance, and Institutional Arrangements and Partnerships. Beyond this, most social protection programs are organized around delivery chain from assessment to enrolment to provision of benefits and services and finally, monitoring and management. Ensuring that each aspect of delivery is adjusted for ASP objectives also helps to ensure ASP’s effectiveness for these objectives. Adaptive Social Protection has proven impacts in its support to disaster preparedness, response, and recovery. For instance, in Indonesia, following the Central Sulawesi Disaster in 2018, a Welfare Tracking Survey after the disaster found that those who received government and NGO social assistance were more likely to demonstrate faster, long-term employment and welfare recovery (Purnamasari, R., et al. 2021). In Fiji, in response to Tropical Storm Winston in 2016, cash transfers were provided to social assistance beneficiaries (vertical expansion through an additional three months of regular transfers) and vouchers to low-income households whose homes were damaged or destroyed. An impact evaluation found that beneficiaries who were given the top-up were more likely recover from the shock compared to similar households that did not receive the additional assistance (Mansur, A. et al. 2017). In the Philippines, the 4Ps conditional cash transfer (CCT) includes Family Development Sessions (FDS) with modules to improve climate resilience and disaster preparedness of beneficiaries, including on disaster preparedness strategies, waste management, bio-intensive gardening, etc. A process evaluation of 4Ps’ FDS found that disaster management was one of the topics parent-beneficiaries could still remember. Over 60% of beneficiaries ranked their preparation for disasters, both as a family (65 percent) and as a community (60 percent), as very high after attending FDS; while 76% percent knew how to prevent/avoid them (DSWD and University of Philippines Los Baños, 2017). The approaches highlighted in this technical session, built on foundational cash transfer approaches to establish durable systems, that enable anticipatory planning and strengthen the adaptive and coping capacities of those most vulnerable. The audience was provided with a framing of the foundational aspects of ASP, following which, they were taken on a hypothetical journey through the disaster cycle, learning how countries have leveraged diverse ASP tools for more effective disaster preparedness, response, recovery, and resilience. Country cases included (i) the Philippines’ use of behavior change communications and beneficiary education to improve disaster preparedness and resilience of the poorest; (ii) Pakistan’s leveraging of big data, its social registry, and interoperability for flood response; (iii) Japan’s use of cash for work for disaster response; and (iv) Indonesia’s experience with welfare tracking to assess disaster impacts and welfare recovery of disaster-affected households and the country’s inclusion of ASP priorities in its ambitious policy reform agenda. Session Speakers (in speaking order): • Asha Williams, Senior Social Protection Specialist, World Bank. • Vilma B. Cabrera, Undersecretary, National Household Targeting System and Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program. • Dr. Muhammad Tahir Noor, Additional Secretary for the Benazir Income Support Programme. • Shingo Nagamatsu, Professor, Faculty of Safety Science, Kansai University. • Ririn Salwa Purnamasari, Senior Economist, World Bank. • Dr. Maliki, Deputy Minister for Population and Employment, Ministry of National Development Planning. • Ruth Rodriguez, Senior Social Protection Specialist, World Bank (moderator). The session organizers are very grateful for the country speakers for taking time from their busy schedules and for sharing their insightful experiences with participants during the Understanding Risk Forum.
“Adaptive social protection is really about people and how we help them become more resilient and recover from shocks.”
The session was instrumental in improving knowledge and capacity on Adaptive Social Protection (ASP) and broadening the understanding of participants on the breadth of ways through which ASP can be applied to support DRR objectives. Some key lessons from country experiences following the session, included: • Efficiency and Speed: ASP systems are crucial for faster and more efficient disaster response. For instance, Dr. Muhammad Tahir Noor, Additional Secretary of Pakistan’s Benazir Income Support Programme, described how the program’s national socioeconomic registry and digital payment systems enabled the government to quickly identify and support affected households. He noted that within 10 days, they were able to disburse 70 billion rupees to 2.76 million households in flood-affected areas after the 2022 floods. This builds on previous evidence from Ethiopia for instance which showed that timely provision of funding for flood responses generated savings of over $6 million, while the longer-term economic cost of responding later could have been $47.9 million (Cabot Venton and Sida, 2017) • Integration: Integrated data systems and programs enhance the effectiveness of adaptive social protection efforts. The experiences of Pakistan with leveraging interoperability mechanisms and Indonesia’s experience with using satellite data and survey data, illustrated the immense benefits of data integration and interoperability for faster response, benefit delivery, and for tracking welfare recovery over time. • Community Engagement: Engaging disaster-affected populations in recovery efforts can yield both economic and psychological benefits. For Japan, cash for work, a critical social protection response mechanism, not only enabled recovery and facilitated provided a source of income to disaster-affected households, but also provided psychological and social cohesion benefits, fostering a sense of purpose and community among participants. • Policy Integration: The session flagged the importance of incorporating ASP into medium and long-term policy priorities to embed its importance across a range of sectoral actions and to ensure sustainability and resilience in the long term. Dr. Maliki, Deputy Minister at Indonesia’s Ministry of National Development Planning, outlined Indonesia’s efforts to reform its social protection system to be more adaptive, focusing on improving databases, integrating programs, and embedding ASP into long-term development policies to create a seamless and resilient social protection framework that can support our population through any crisis. Organized by: Asha Williams
