Promoting Resilient Livelihoods through Adaptive Social Protection: Lessons from 124 programmes in South Asia

Abstract

Adaptive Social Protection refers to efforts to integrate social protection (SP), disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation (CCA), the need for which is increasingly recognised by practitioners and academics. Relying on 124 agricultural programmes implemented in five countries in Asia, this article considers how these elements are being brought together, and explores the potential gains of these linkages. It shows that full integration is still relatively limited but that, when it occurs, it helps to shift the time horizon beyond short-term interventions aimed at supporting peoples' coping strategies and/or graduation objectives, towards longer-term interventions that can help promote transformation towards climate and disaster resilient livelihood options.

Conceptualizing community resilience to natural hazards – the emBRACE framework

“…Social protection action includes diverse types of actions intended to provide community members with the resources necessary to improve their living standards to a point at which they are no longer dependent upon external sources of assistance (Davies et al, 2008). Social protection has been included as a main component because many resilience building actions cannot be directly attributed to civil protection action but are instead concerned with the more general pursuit of well-being and sustainability (Davies et al, 2013;Heltberg et al, 2009). For example, the presence of an active community-based voluntary and/or charity sector capable of providing social support (e.g.…”

The Impacts of Universalization: A Case Study on Thailand’s Social Protection and Universal Health Coverage

“…Also, the proportion of migrant workers who moved from rural areas to the central city of Bangkok maintain their 30 Baht eligibility registered in rural areas. For this reason, it is 3 See Davies et al (2013). Transformative social protection is grounded in social justice and seeks to address underlying causes of vulnerability beyond the provision of short-term relief from poverty or management of risk.…”

Social Protection and Climate Change

“…In Asia, research examining over 124 agricultural programmes suggests that the more programmes integrate SP, DRR and CCA, the more likely they are to improve the livelihoods of poor people -focusing less on short-term reactive relief and more on the underlying causes of poverty and vulnerability (Davies et al, 2013). Integrating programmes, then, can help give them a more lasting impact.…”

“…However, more recent ASP research presents a mixed picture as to how much integration has been achieved in practice (Arnall et al, 2010;Davies et al, 2013). It also raises the question of the extent to which social protection reduces vulnerability.…”

“…The ASP research programme started by suggesting the advantages to be gained from bringing together the agendas of social protection, disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation, both conceptually and in policy and practice (Davies et al, 2008;Davies et al, 2013). The underlying assumption was that combining elements of these three fields could improve the efficiency of interventions, helping to address the unsafe living conditions of the poor, counter the underlying causes of vulnerability and promote people's ability to adapt to a changing climate.…”