The concept of Adaptive Social Protection (ASP) has been developed in an attempt to combine the three prominent approaches to vulnerability reduction – social protection (SP), disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation (CCA). This paper provides an initial assessment of the ways in which these elements are being brought together in development policy and practice. It does this through a meta-analysis of 124 agricultural programmes implemented in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan. The findings show that full integration of SP, DRR and CCA is relatively limited in south Asia, although there has been significant progress in combining SP and DRR in the last ten years.
The concept of Adaptive Social Protection (ASP) refers to measures that aim to build the resilience of the poorest and most vulnerable people to climate change. Social protection involves all initiatives that transfer income or assets to the poor, protect the vulnerable against livelihood risks, and enhance the social status and rights of the marginalised. SP can be understood in terms of four key categories of objectives: protective, preventive, promotive and transformative measures. The DRR community has focused beyond humanitarian relief and rehabilitation activities towards preventing and reducing the risk of disasters. SP, DDR and CCA approaches have developed separately over the last two decades.
Of the 124 projects and programmes studied, 78 per cent were determined to be using SP approaches, 58 per cent DRR and 35 per cent CCA. Fourty-two per cent integrate two approaches, and 16 per cent integrate all three. Fourty-two per cent involve just one approach.
- Protection and promotion measures are relatively common elements of single-discipline SP projects.
- In projects that combine SP and DRR approaches there is slightly less emphasis on protection, and greater emphasis on longer-term prevention and promotion.
- Only two projects in this study use SP approaches solely to help people adapt to the longer-term impacts of climate change.
- Projects that combine all three approaches tend to use protection measures less and prevention and transformation measures more.
Future work on the ASP concept can be structured around both the use and impact of the ASP approach, as well as the different categories of SP objectives. Key questions include:
- How do programmes that bring components of SP, DRR and CCA together contribute to livelihoods resilience for the poorest and most vulnerable?
- What are the impacts of these approaches in terms of their effectiveness in reducing vulnerability and poverty relative to other types of intervention?
- In which circumstances does ASP represent the best use of scarce resources and which options for ASP are best value for money?
- How do different national policy environments facilitate or inhibit the integration of SPP, DRR and CCA approaches?
- What does an ASP approach look like in the context of fragile states?
- How can projects that aim to prevent livelihood impacts from occurring work alongside protection-oriented interventions?
- Under what circumstances should SP interventions that alter peoples’ livelihoods be pursued?
- What aspects of structured relationships constitute vulnerability and inhibit adaptation, and how can transformative approaches overcome these?
