Strengthening Resilience through Social Protection Programs

Guidance Note

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• Publisher: Asian Development Bank
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9789292611040
• eBook ISBN: 9789292611057
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Social Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

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.

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INTRODUCTION

1.1   Why This Guidance Note?

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 marginalized population. The effects include loss of household assets, disruption of livelihoods, and loss of income, and may lead to the poor adopting negative coping strategies, including selling their productive assets, reducing their consumption levels, and making harmful investment choices regarding education, health, and livelihoods, all of which may impact their long-term well-being. The effects may also result in the near-poor sliding back into poverty due to impacts of hazard-related shocks and stresses, and the increase in the number of transitory poor due to increase in intensity and frequency of hazards.

The poor and vulnerable population are typically the recipients of social protection programs which are designed to reduce overall vulnerability. Social protection is defined as the set of policies and programs designed to reduce poverty and vulnerability by promoting efficient labor markets, diminishing people’s exposure to risks, and enhancing their capacity to protect themselves against hazards and interruption or loss of income.¹ However, increase in risks from climate change and disasters will imply that the assets, livelihoods, and well-being of the poor will become more vulnerable. This will require solutions to reduce the current and future vulnerabilities of the poor and marginalized in the context of climate change and disasters, strengthen their adaptive capacity, and enhance residual risk management to support them to recover from hazard-related shocks. The solutions may include a range of measures—providing consumption support during lean periods, developing a culture of savings to encourage investments in risk reduction measures, supporting livelihood diversification to adapt to longer-term changes in climate variables, and providing insurance products to manage residual risk. These measures are closely related to measures often supported by social protection programs. Thus, when designed with climate and disaster risk considerations in mind and implemented in close coordination with programs focusing on strengthening livelihoods, financial inclusion, and early warning systems, social protection programs provide real opportunities to strengthen climate and disaster resilience.

Resilience in this document is defined as the ability of a poor household exposed to hazards to resist, absorb, adapt to, and recover from the effects of hazards in a timely and efficient manner, without jeopardizing their sustained socioeconomic advancement and development (see Table 1 for definitions of key resilience-related terms used in this guidance note). It is in this context that this guidance note aims at (i) providing a common understanding for social protection practitioners on why to strengthen resilience through social protection, and (ii) proposing a working framework comprising principles and key considerations 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 climate change and disaster-related shocks and stresses (see Figure 1).

Table 1: Definitions of Key Resilience-Related Terms Used in This Guidance Note

Adaptive capacity: The ability of people to adjust to climate change (including climate variability and extremes) to moderate potential damages, to take advantage of opportunities, or to cope with the consequences (adapted from IPCC 2012).^a	Disaster risk: The potential loss of life, injury, or destroyed or damaged assets which could occur to a system, a society, or a community in a specific period of time, determined probabilistically as a function of hazard, exposure, vulnerability, and capacity.^b
Climate change: A change in the state of the climate that can be identified (e.g., by using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer. Climate change may be due to natural internal processes or external forcings, or to persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use.^a	Disaster risk management: The application of disaster risk reduction policies and strategies to prevent new disaster risk, reduce existing disaster risk, and manage residual risk, contributing to the strengthening of resilience and reduction of disaster losses.^b
Climate change adaptation: In human systems, the process of adjustment to actual or expected climate and its effects to moderate harm or exploit beneficial opportunities. In natural systems, the process of adjustment to actual climate and its effects; human intervention may facilitate adjustment to expected climate.^a	Resilience: The ability of countries, communities, businesses, and individual households to resist, absorb, recover from, and reorganize in response to natural hazard events, without jeopardizing their sustained socioeconomic advancement and development.^c
Disasters: A serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society involving widespread human, material, economic, or environmental losses and impacts, which exceeds the ability of the affected community of society to cope using its own resources.^b	Vulnerability: The conditions determined by physical, social, economic, and environmental factors or processes that increase the susceptibility of an individual, a community, assets, or systems to the impacts of hazards.^b
^aIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). 2012: Glossary of terms. In Field, C.B., V. Barros, T.F. Stocker, D. Qin, D.J. Dokken, K.L. Ebi, M.D. Mastrandrea, K.J. Mach, G.-K. Plattner, S.K. Allen, M. Tignor, and P.M. Midgley, eds. Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation. A Special Report of Working Groups I and II of the IPCC. Cambridge University Press. pp. 555–564. ^bUNISDR Terminology on Disaster Risk Reduction. http://www.preventionweb.net/english/professional/terminology/ ^cADB. 2013. Investing In Resilience: Ensuring a Disaster-Resistant Future. Manila.

Figure 1: Examples of Strengthening Resilience through Social Protection Programs

Source: Asian Development Bank

 

1.2 Who Is This Guidance Note For?

Recognizing that social protection programs may spread across different government agencies in a country, this guidance note is intended for practitioners across agencies that are involved in designing and implementing social protection programs. The guidance note is also intended for social protection practitioners from development partner organizations that are involved in supporting governments in the Asia and Pacific region that develop and implement social protection programs through technical assistance and financing.

1.3 What Does This Guidance Note Contain?

Apart from the introductory and conclusion section, the guidance note has two sections:

Section 2 provides a common understanding on why it is important to strengthen climate and disaster resilience through social protection programs. The importance lies in both how social protection programs can introduce ex ante measures to reduce risk and strengthen adaptive capacity of poor households and vulnerable populations, as well as provide ex post measures to facilitate effective post-disaster response and recovery.

Section 3 proposes a working framework (see figure on page 10) comprising guiding principles and key considerations that are critical for social protection programs (primarily social assistance programs) to deliver on resilience outcomes.

Although this guidance note is based on evidence from literature and operational experience, it does not provide an exhaustive review of the literature around the role of social protection in disasters, climate change, and resilience building. Nor does it provide detailed case studies. It is not intended to be a detailed technical note but rather an introductory note to provide an overview of the topic and a working framework to initiate discussions at the country level on policy and programs.

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WHY STRENGTHEN RESILIENCE THROUGH SOCIAL PROTECTION PROGRAMS?

This section describes the linkages between socia...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• 1 / Introduction
• 2 / Why Strengthen Resilience Through Social Protection Programs?
• 3 / How to Strengthen Resilience Through Social Protection Programs?
• 4 / Conclusion
• Back Cover