Sahel Adaptive Social Protection Trust Fund: Linking humanitarian cash assistance and national social protection systems – Burkina Faso Case Study

The Sahel Adaptive Social Protection Programme (SASPP) aims to help poor and vulnerable households become more resilient to the effects of climate change, and to expand the reach of shock-responsive cash transfer programmes in six Sahel countries: Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Senegal. It includes a learning agenda to inform political dialogue and to support the operationalisation of the humanitarian–development nexus.

This report focuses on Burkina Faso and is one of six country-level case studies. A synthesis report will distil the lessons from across the six countries. The research is funded through the SASPP Multi-Donor Trust Fund and seeks to contribute to the SASPP by providing operationally relevant and practical analysis and recommendations to enhance the collaboration between programmes and actors, with the overarching goal of addressing the needs of populations more effectively and efficiently.

The key focus of this research is on the linkages between humanitarian cash transfer programmes and social safety nets. As a result – and it is important to state this – the emphasis is on the convergence of the two systems (or parts thereof), and not on their respective performance. The research assesses whether enhanced cooperation between humanitarian and national actors could be achieved, and if so, how. It does this by assessing existing levels of convergence between social safety nets and humanitarian cash assistance at several levels, including those of the policy and legal framework, governance structure, programme design and objectives, financing streams, etc., and by looking for practical entry points for further alignment. The six country-level case studies and the synthesis report seek to showcase experiences and lessons learned in the Sahel region, and to provide recommendations for further action.