Social protection and climate change adaption

Social protection initiatives are as much at risk from climate change as other development approaches, and they are unlikely to succeed in reducing poverty if they do not consider short and long-term shocks and
stresses associated with climate change.

To strengthen social protection and climate change adaptation approaches, IDS researchers have developed an ‘adaptive social protection’ framework. This framework characterises social protection measures that acknowledge the changing nature of climate-related impacts, including the future existence of conditions that have not been experienced before.

Features of this framework include:

• an emphasis on transforming productive livelihoods as well protecting, and adapting to changing climate conditions rather than simply reinforcing coping mechanisms
• grounding in an understanding of the structural root causes of poverty in a particular region or sector, permitting more effective targeting of vulnerability to multiple shocks and stresses
• incorporation of rights-based rationale for action, stressing equity and justice dimensions of chronic poverty and climate change adaptation in addition to instrumentalist rationale based primarily on economic efficiency

Gaps to address:

• improving the evidence base: lessons learned, poverty impact and cost effectiveness 
• developing tools and resources, for example climate risk assessment tobe used with social protection programmes
• supporting collaboration by engaging in national and internationalevents and conferences
• funding for adaptive social protection, integrating social protectioninto adaptation funding and vice versa
• encouraging dialogue among the disciplines