SPACE Deciding when and how to link humanitarian assistance and social protection: guidance and tools for response analysis

This short paper presents two complementary ‘Tools’ to guide thinking and decisionmaking on humanitarian programme design, providing the basis for conducting a comprehensive response analysis to inform decisions on linking HA-SP. These can be used to determine the likely feasibility and appropriateness of linking humanitarian action and social protection and the key considerations to bear in mind for different options for linking. Experience shows that linking can lead to a range of possible benefits such as increasing timeliness, enhancing sustainability, reducing costs, increasing coherence of responses led by governments and partners, and building and strengthening national systems. It also offers one possibility of an exit strategy for humanitarian actors. Realising these benefits depends on the right design for the context and consideration of possible trade-offs