CHAPTER SIX

Social Protection

Designing Adaptive Systems to Build Resilience to Climate Change

Daniel O. Gilligan, Stephen Devereux, and Janna Tenzing

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Creating adaptive social protection systems for the most vulnerable is vital to building resilience to climate change

Social protection programs are a central component of national strategies in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to increase incomes for poor households and protect them from livelihood shocks.
Social protection is also vital to effective climate change responses; it supports adaption to more frequent extreme weather events and can support mitigation.
These measures are especially important in LMICs, where most program beneficiaries are poor rural households engaged in agriculture and where climate change may drive major economic disruptions.
Adaptive social protection (ASP) is an integrated approach that addresses the challenges of climate change by combining social assistance programs with humanitarian assistance and disaster risk reduction strategies.

The following steps can strengthen the role of social protection systems in climate adaptation:

Expand coverage of existing social assistance to immediately improve resilience of the most vulnerable, reduce hardship, and promote economic inclusion.
Reform social protection systems by strengthening coordination between conventional social assistance, humanitarian response, and disaster risk reduction.
Undertake risk and challenge assessments, including of contextual factors and climate forecasting, to inform social protection adaptation.
Reform program modalities to support household coping strategies, such as using digital transfers that are accessible during local seasonal migration.
Make social protection “climate smart,” such as through innovative insurance and productive inclusion initiatives.

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