Month: August 2022

The frequency and severity of shocks is ever increasing as we continue to battle with the ongoing effects of climate change. These shocks are particularly devastating for already vulnerable communities, such as those living below the poverty line as well as those dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods. People in the humanitarian, disaster risk management and social protection sectors are working to improve systems to ensure that responses to emergencies can be more effective in helping the most vulnerable to adapt. Social protection is already being used to help those in poverty or in situations of crisis like illness or loss of employment. The challenge is to adapt these programmes to allow them to respond to shocks and disasters so that they can complement or even substitute current methods of emergency response.

This adaptation of existing social protection programmes and systems to cope with shocks is called “shock-responsive social protection”. This term is used to bring attention to shocks that affect large populations simultaneously (covariate shocks), such as drought. Covariate shocks can lead to loss of income or assets from say, the reduction of agricultural yield. These types of shocks, lead to an increase in demand for assistance, meaning that programmes need to have access to varying amounts of funds and resources depending on the scale of the shock.

Situations such as earthquakes, floods or conflict can disrupt services which can cause problems for social protection systems and the way that they function. Staff may not be able to get to work, payment infrastructure can be damaged, or funds could be diverted to somewhere of higher priority. Recipients may be displaced either internally or abroad, making them unable to reach the point in which they access their assistance, or they may lose identification documents. For social protection programmes to still be useful under these difficult circumstances, they must be prepared with contingency plans in place and be able to adjust their regular programmes when necessary. It is in these scenarios that shock-reponsive social protection is vital.

Some of the ways in which governments are working on this adaptation is by providing top ups to beneficiaries of social protection in times of crisis or by temporarily allowing new beneficiaries affected by disasters to benefit from assistance. Some humanitarian agencies temporarily put systems in place that can be absorbed by current social protection programmes once the disaster has passed. All social protection programmes can be altered to take the occurance of shocks into consideration. For example, by prioritising disaster prone areas, or adjusting the payment schedule of cash transfers to fit with seasonal vulnerabilities. However, these systems are only one part of the solution, many other forms of humanitarian aid will also be needed.

The social protection sector is eager to expand their skillset to make their programmes more responsive to shocks but this would require more sectors to collaborate. The disaster risk management sector has tools that could be helpful, such as early warning systems and vulnerability assessments. This strategic coordination between sectors is crucial for being more shock responsive and helping the most vulnerable.

Sources & further reading:

https://socialprotection.org/learn/glossary/shock-responsive-social-protection

https://www.wfp.org/publications/10-things-you-wish-youd-always-known-about-shock-responsive-social-protection

European Commission. 2019. “Social Protection across the Humanitarian-Development Nexus. A Game Changer in Supporting People through Crises”. Tools and Methods Series No. 26. European Comission.

Social protection is a crucial tool for adressing shocks, vulnerability, gender equality and poverty. It can be the difference between a child going to bed hungry or missing school. It can enable people to access essential health care and adapt more easily to climate related shocks. Expanding the coverage and scope of social protection programmes to ensure that they reach the most vulnerable is essential for preventing households from falling into poverty during times of distress.

Women and children are over-represented among those living in poverty across the world. For example, women between the ages of 24 and 34 are 25% more likely to live below the poverty line and female headed households are nearly 50% more likely to be suffering from extreme poverty than male headed households. COVID-19 has only futher exacerbated this trend. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG5) aims to address these issues of gender inequality; ensuring equal access to resources, property ownership and financial sercvices for women, promoting empowerment and increasing resilience.

If social protection programmes are established with gender specific vulnerabilities and structural inequalities in mind, it can contribute to gender transformational change. This would involve gender specific programmes tailored towards women in their design, implementation and financing features (Camilletti et al., 2022). Addressing gender inequality through social protection has proven to be a successful way to achieve gender transformative results. Especially for improving girls’ access to education, women’s health and reduced poverty.

However, as of now, much work is to be done to achieve these desired results. In the rural communities in which they are most needed, challenges persist in making the programmes accessible to women. Women are likely to be excluded from many social protection programmes, as they often target the formal sector in which women are under-represented. This includes insurance, pensions and social legislation. Programmes that focus on redistributing assets to women, that tackle age-related and work-related vulnerabilities like childcare are very effective. Public works, unemployment insurance and tax polices are less so. Cash transfers are one of the most effective methods of providing assets to women, rather than employment schemes.

In order for social protection to be beneficial for women, access to social protection within the labour market must be extended to include the informal sector where women are more represented. Women shoulder the care of children and older relatives, often coming in the way of holding down a career, preventing income and economic independence. An important cause of this is that contributory schemes like pensions, benefit full-time, formal employment. As such, women’s benefits tend to be much lower than for men. Programmes would need more of a focus on assisting women in the household, like caring for elderly or disabled family members.

Gender sensitive social protection programmes address gender differences and inequality. Benefits must be constructed with the goal of mitigating these differences. Programmes need to be assigned in a way that accomodates different employment paths. For example, for mothers and children, univeral maternity benefits that provide income security for a sufficient period before and after childbirth is essential. This should coincide with paternity benefits to reduce the household labour burden for women and encourage shared responsibility of parenthood. Adjustments in pensions and the required number of contributory years can also help compensate for loss of income during years spent caring for elderly family members. Essential health care service packages must also be tailored towards women’s needs, including maternal health and childbirth, sexual health, cervical checks and assistance in cases of sexual violence.

For social protection to reach all women, schemes must be accessible in rural and urban areas. The best way to achieve this is to combine programmes with national policies that support gender equality. Electronic delivery methods are also an effective way to reach remote areas. However, a disparity remains with women’s access to technology and banking and as such, alternatives are needed. Social protection itself will not solve all gender equality issues but if done right, it has the potential to greatly reduce the gender gap.

Sources & further reading:

https://www.unicef.org/documents/social-protection-gender-equality-findings

UN Sustainable Development Goals https://sdgs.un.org/

Camilletti, E., Nesbitt-Ahmed, Z., & Subrahmanian, R. (2022). Promoting Gender-Transformative Change through Social Protection.

Luttrell, C. and Moser, C., 2004, ‘Gender and Social Protection’, Overseas Development Institute (ODI), London

Climate change is now widely understood to be a leading factor for climate induced migration. As such, planning for and facilitating migration is becomming increasingly important for reducing the future costs and increasing human security. However, concrete policy and systems for appropriately managing migration are still lacking. Ongoing research is demonstrating that innovative social protection programmes can play an important role in addressing the root causes of and facilitating climate induced migration (Schwan & Yu, 2017).

Social protection refers to “all public and private initiatives that provide income or consumption transfers to the poor, protect the vulnerable against livelihood risks and enhance the social status and rights of the marginalised” (Devereux & Sabates-Wheeler, 2004).

In order for countries to reduce the occurances of climate induced displacement, they must plan and prepare for natural disasters and extreme weather events and take the appropriate steps to ensure that all people have access to an adequate standard of living. People are more likely to leave their homes if they are not provided adequate social assistance to adapt to the climate related impacts. Social protection has been proven an efficient method for strenghtening the resilience of communities against climate change.

However, migration is not always negative. In fact, it can be a very powerful tool for coping and adapting to shocks. Social protection can help provide the means for people to migrate in times of distress through the receipt of regular cash transfers. The guaranteed income stream lowers the cost of migration, allowing households to broaden their economic base through migration; by moving to cities with more opportunities for higher wage employment that can grant them the opportunity to move out of poverty. Staying home in areas that lack food security only exacerbates poverty.

Social protection can offer an opportunity to reduce the vulnerability of migrants, migrating in response to climate change impacts. However, there are many barriers in the way of migrants accessing social protection benefits. As of now, access to social protection is constrained for non-nationals, including displaced people and migrants living in a country affected by a shock. Additionally, many migrants work in the informal sector, which means that they do not have access to social security benefits. This type of employment already lends them more vulnerable to shocks. Social protection programmes will need to be tailored with migration and displacement in mind.

Sources & further reading:

Longhurst, D., & Slater, R. (2022). Shock-responsive social protection: what is known about what works in fragile and conflict-affected situations?.

Mueller, V., Gray, C., Handa, S., & Seidenfeld, D. (2020). Do social protection programs foster short-term and long-term migration adaptation strategies?. Environment and development economics, 25(2), 135-158.

Schwan, S., & Yu, X. (2017). Social protection as a strategy to address climate-induced migration. International Journal of Climate Change Strategies and Management.

According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, since 2008 over 318 million people globally have been forcibly displaced from their homes by floods, windstorms, earthquakes or droughts, 30.7 million in 2020 alone. This is the equivalent of one person every second (Apap & du Revel, 2021). Climate change is possibly the single most pressing issue of our time and disaster displacement is one of its greatest consequences. Entire populations are already suffering the impacts but these impacts will be felt hardest by already vulnerable communities who have fewer alternatives for adaptation. The climate induced migration nexus is widely acknowledge but as of now, the international response is limited and protection for those affected remains inadequate. The United Nations (UN) 2030 Sustainable Development Goals include several targets on migration including SDG 10.7 – “Facilitate orderly, safe, regular and responsible migration and mobility of people, including through the implementation of planned and well-managed migration policies.” However, so far the progress towards achieving this goal has been limited.

One of the most critical challenges for these people who are often described as “climate refugees” – is that there is no clear definition for this term or category of people. The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) does not currently endorse the term nor are they covered by the 1951 Refugee Convention, leaving them even more vulnerable. Refugee status is reserved for those in fear of persecution for their race, nationality, religion, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, and are unable to seek protection in their home countries. However, climate refugees are still rendered stateless by circumstances beyond their control. This lack of definition leaves people in limbo and prevents them from accessing asylum, providing them with security and stability in a safer place.

While many of those forced to migrate do so within their own countries borders, some move abroad and are referred to as “externally displaced persons”. However, most of the research in this field is focussed on internally displaced persons, meaning it is harder to get a clear overview of the scale of cross-border migration resulting from environmental disasters. The lack of data on the matter is also due to the legal void regarding the status of external climate migrants and prevents the implementation of an international legal framework to address the issue.

The link between climate change and forced displacement has been acknowledged among many international organisations. The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has stated that climate related impacts are worsening living conditions for already vulnerable communities and acting as a trigger for migration. The UN has made efforts to establish a universal definition for what constitutes a “climate refugee”. However, this does not mean that climate migrants are granted refugee status and countries must come together to make this new definition legally binding to ensure the support and protection of these people.

COP26 missed the opportunity to draw attention to the issue of climate refugees. The Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley and the Foreign Minister of Tuvalu, Simon Kofe set the tone for the opening ceremony by highlighting the threat that is rising sea levels for many island nations. However, the link between the “pressing issues of human mobility under climate change” discussed in these speeches and the global refugee crisis was not made throughout the entirety of the conference. Expanding access to asylum for climate refugees is crucial for upholding commitment to human rights as well having the benefit of bolstering economic growth.

Sources & further reading:

IPCC Sixth Assessment Report 2022 https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/

https://www.unhcr.org/en-ie/climate-change-and-disasters.html#:~:text=The%20impacts%20of%20climate%20change,the%20world%20that%20host%20refugees.

The UN Sustainable Development Goals https://sdgs.un.org/goals

Zurich.com. (2022). Retrieved 28 August 2022, from https://www.zurich.com/en/media/magazine/2022/there-could-be-1-2-billion-climate-refugees-by-2050-here-s-what-you-need-to-know#:~:text=The%20term%20%E2%80%9Cclimate%20refugees%E2%80%9D%20has,disruption.%E2%80%9D%20But%20the%20extent%20of.

The Issue that COP26 Overlooked: Climate Refugees