Out now: detailed Climate Centre position paper on social protection

By the Climate Centre

The Climate Centre today publishes a comprehensive position paper on the role of social protection “in improving the ability of individuals and communities to address the socio-economic impacts of climate events”.

This paper consolidates the Climate Centre’s understanding of social protection, presents its vision for, and provides examples of, its work in the sector, and frames social protection as a “thematic priority for climate change and disaster risk management in the humanitarian, development and other relevant sectors.”

Social protection tools such as cash transfers and public works can prevent households from sinking into poverty due to climate impacts, the paper argues, and bolster climate-resilient livelihoods. Other benefits include progress towards the sustainable development goals, including food security, education and gender equality.

That vision, meanwhile, is for social protection “to be progressively incorporated into programming by the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement [‘the Movement’] across timescales”, and it constitutes a road map for the relevant agenda up to 2030.

Analytical support

To date, the Climate Centre’s social protection team has worked in 35 countries, with National Societies playing a critical role in “design, implementation and maintenance … including aligning other humanitarian efforts with country-led social protection systems.”

Highlights detailed in the new position paper include:

*Cash transfers for poverty reduction and the preservation of environmental assets in the Colombian Amazon, in partnership with the Inter-American Development Bank.

*Advice on the drafting of legislation on a social protection bill in Sierra Leone, on a national contingency plan for floods and landslides there, and an early action protocol – all in conjunction with the authorities or the Sierra Leone Red Cross Society or both.

*Analytical and technical support for forecast-based action and shock-responsive social protection in Nepal.

*Feasibility research on anticipatory action for riverine floods and associated hazards in Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia through existing social protection. 

*Technical advice for drought-related forecast-based financing and social protection in Lesotho, Mozambique and Namibia.

‘Mobilizing the Movement’

Social protection can play a role with nearly all Climate Centre priority themes, and potentially be expanded to incorporate other thematic areas “to leverage comparative advantages and create synergies”.

As the technical expert centre for the Movement, the Climate Centre can improve “the delivery of social protection schemes to manage climate risks,” including through the training of National Societies and other national agencies and institutions.

“We will focus on mobilizing the Movement around social protection, potentially as part of the IFRC climate action journey for National Societies, identifying champions, promoting key messages and supporting capacity building,” the paper adds.

Beyond the Movement, it notes, social protection is a key component of the global goals; it’s one of four pillars of the ILO’s decent work agenda; the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit included a commitment to expand social protection; and the plan for implementation of the new urban agenda recognizes social protection as key to protecting lives and livelihoods within informal economies.

Nearly 2,000 residents of Peru’s central coastal town of Huarmey queue to receive Peruvian Red Cross humanitarian aid after what were described as the worst floods and landslides in decades that were linked to El Niño. With Bolivia and Ecuador, Peru is one of three South American nations where the Climate Centre has provided technical guidance on integrating climate-risk management into social protection programmes, with a focus on early warning and action. (File photo: Fernando Gandarillas/IFRC)