Adaptive Social Protection

Adaptive social protection (ASP) helps to build the resilience of poor and vulnerable households to the impacts of large, covariate shocks, such as natural disasters, economic crises, pandemics, conflict, and forced displacement. Through the provision of transfers and services directly to these households, ASP supports their capacity to prepare for, cope with, and adapt to the shocks they face—before, during, and after these shocks occur. Over the long term, by supporting these three capacities, ASP can provide a pathway to a more resilient state for households that may otherwise lack the resources to move out of chronically vulnerable situations. Adaptive Social Protection: Building Resilience to Shocks outlines an organizing framework for the design and implementation of ASP, providing insights into the ways in which social protection systems can be made more capable of building household resilience. By way of its four building blocks—programs, information, finance, and institutional arrangements and partnerships—the framework highlights both the elements of existing social protection systems that are the cornerstones for building household resilience, as well as the additional investments that are central to enhancing their ability to generate these outcomes. In this report, the ASP framework and its building blocks have been elaborated primarily in relation to natural disasters and associated climate change. Nevertheless, many of the priorities identified within each building block are also pertinent to the design and implementation of ASP across other types of shocks, providing a foundation for a structured approach to the advancement of this rapidly evolving and complex agenda.

Adaptive management is an approach to managing social-ecological systems that fosters learning about the systems being managed and remains at the forefront of environmental management nearly 40 years after its original conception. Adaptive management persists because it allows action despite uncertainty, and uncertainty is reduced when learning occurs during the management process. Often termed “learning by doing”, the allure of this management approach has entrenched the concept widely in agency direction and statutory mandates across the globe. This exceptional volume is a collection of essays on the past, present and future of adaptive management written by prominent authors with long experience in developing, implementing, and assessing adaptive management. Moving forward, the book provides policymakers, managers and scientists a powerful tool for managing for resilience in the face of uncertainty.

The State of Social Safety Nets 2018 Report examines global trends in the social safety net/social assistance coverage, spending, and program performance based on the World Bank Atlas of Social Protection Indicators of Resilience and Equity (ASPIRE) updated database. The report documents the main social safety net programs that exist globally and their use to alleviate poverty and to build shared prosperity. The 2018 report expands on the 2015 edition, both in administrative and household survey data coverage. A distinct mark of this report is that, for the first time, it tells the story of what happens with SSN/SA programs spending and coverage over time, when the data allow us to do so. This 2018 edition also features two special themes †“ Social Assistance and Ageing, focusing on the role of old-age social pensions, and Adaptive Social Protection, focusing on what makes SSN systems/programs adaptive to various shocks.

Ending poverty and stabilizing climate change will be two unprecedented global achievements and two major steps toward sustainable development. But the two objectives cannot be considered in isolation: they need to be jointly tackled through an integrated strategy. This report brings together those two objectives and explores how they can more easily be achieved if considered together. It examines the potential impact of climate change and climate policies on poverty reduction. It also provides guidance on how to create a “win-win†? situation so that climate change policies contribute to poverty reduction and poverty-reduction policies contribute to climate change mitigation and resilience building. The key finding of the report is that climate change represents a significant obstacle to the sustained eradication of poverty, but future impacts on poverty are determined by policy choices: rapid, inclusive, and climate-informed development can prevent most short-term impacts whereas immediate pro-poor, emissions-reduction policies can drastically limit long-term ones.

The State of Economic Inclusion Report 2021 sheds light on one of the most intractable challenges faced by development policy makers and practitioners: transforming the economic lives of the world's poorest and most vulnerable people. Economic inclusion programs are a bundle of coordinated, multidimensional interventions that support individuals, households, and communities so they can raise their incomes and build their assets. Programs targeting the extreme poor and vulnerable groups are now under way in 75 countries. This report presents data and evidence from 219 of these programs, which are reaching over 90 million beneficiaries. Governments now lead the scale-up of economic inclusion interventions, often building on preexisting national programs such as safety nets, livelihoods and jobs, and financial inclusion, and 93 percent of the total beneficiaries are covered by government programs. The report offers four important contributions: -- A detailed analysis of the nature of these programs, the people living in extreme poverty and vulnerability whom they support, and the organizational challenges and opportunities inherent in designing and leading them. -- An evidence review of 80 quantitative and qualitative evaluations of economic inclusion programs in 37 countries. -- The first multicountry costing study including both government-led and other economic inclusion programs, indicating that programs show potential for cost efficiencies when integrated into national systems. -- Four detailed case studies featuring programs under way in Bangladesh, India, Peru, and the Sahel, which highlight the programmatic and institutional adaptations required to scale in quite diverse contexts. Data from the report are available on the PEI Data Portal (http://www.peiglobal.org), where users can explore and submit data to build on this baseline.

Climate and disaster risk is increasing in the Asia and Pacific region, exacerbating existing vulnerabilities and creating new ones. The adverse effects are felt most by the poor and the vulnerable. Social protection programs, when designed with climate and disaster risk considerations in mind, provide enhanced opportunities to strengthen climate and disaster resilience. This guidance note underscores the importance of strengthening climate change and disaster resilience through social protection programs and proposes a working framework for social protection programs to deliver on resilience outcomes---reduced risk, strengthened capacity to adapt, and enhanced residual risk management strategies to help recover from the adverse impacts of slow-onset and rapid-onset hazards.

This book provides a comparative analysis of policy instruments designed to respond to climate change, drought and floods in connection with agricultural producers and their communities in four case study areas: Alberta and Saskatchewan, Canada; Coquimbo, Chile; and Mendoza, Argentina. Assessed from the standpoint of effectiveness and adaptive governance, instruments for improving the livelihood capitals of agricultural producers are identified and recommendations to improve the suite of policy instruments are put forward.

Rapid environmental change calls for individuals and societies with an ability to transform our interactions with each other and the ecosystems upon which we depend. Adaptive capacity - the ability of a social-ecological system (or the components of that system) to be robust to disturbances and capable of responding to changes - is increasingly recognized as a critical attribute of multi-level environmental governance. This unique volume offers the first interdisciplinary and integrative perspective on an emerging area of applied scholarship, with contributions from internationally recognized researchers and practitioners. It demonstrates how adaptive capacity makes environmental governance possible in complex social-ecological systems. Cutting-edge theoretical developments are explored and empirical case studies offered from a wide range of geographic settings and natural resource contexts, such as water, climate, fisheries and forestry. • Of interest to researchers, policymakers and resource managers seeking to navigate and understand social-ecological change in diverse geographic settings and resource contexts