Social Protection
Context
The State of the World’s Cash 2020 report found:
- Working with, through and alongside social protection systems is now considered key to strengthening the humanitarian-development nexus and humanitarians are increasingly active in this space
- Practitioners find that the three biggest challenges to effective linkages are: (i) lack of coordination between the actors involved, (ii) social protection systems are not designed to respond to crises, (iii) humanitarian practitioners lack expertise in social protection
- Critically, there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution to linking CVA and social protection. Trade-offs between efficiency, effectiveness, accountability, and sustainability must be considered to ensure the best outcomes for people living in crisis and depends on context, existing systems, and timeframe. Linking will not always be appropriate and social protection systems may not meet all needs. In many contexts, in the short to medium term at least, humanitarian programming will be required to fill gaps.
Current Priorities
The CALP Network has invested intensely in this thematic area over the last few years. We will continue to work closely with the SPIAC-B Working group on linking humanitarian (cash) assistance and social protection (formerly the Grand Bargain Sub-Workstream on Social Protection) and with the SocialProtection.org platform and the Online Community Social Protection in Crisis Contexts to develop evidence, produce capacity building materials and provide technical support to coordination actors.
Community of Practice
SocialProtection.org hosts a dynamic and collaborative online community of practice (CoP) bringing together individuals from diverse backgrounds interested in expanding social protection in crisis-prone areas. The CoP offers a space to exchange documents, insights, and news in order to progress and learn together. Its inclusive and member-led approach offers organisations and individual members a forum to increase learning and outreach, facilitating the exchange of experiences and expanding knowledge. A discussion group hosted by dgroups.org complements these activities by connecting users rapidly via email.
SPACE
There are a wealth of relevant resources from ‘Social Protection Approaches To Covid-19: Expert Advice’ (SPACE) published in the CALP library.
Featured content
Linking Social Protection and Humanitarian Cash and Voucher Assistance
Report
There is a growing momentum and body of work around the idea of developing stronger links between humanitarian cash and voucher assistance (CVA) and social protection (SP). This Briefing Paper for the CALP Network, based on a literature review, a survey, and interviews, is intended to inform the CALP Network’s overall approach in this area, and subsequently its capacity building and...
Linking Social Protection and Humanitarian Cash
Blog Post
The case for social protection to help people cope with shocks has always been clear and never more obvious than during the current Covid-19 crisis. These issues are currently playing out in real time as governments, donors and aid agencies scramble to find ways to get more help to more people to cope with the economic consequences of illness and lockdown. As the virus starts to take hold in...
Linking Social Protection and humanitarian cash and voucher assistance (CVA) – what do we really know and where to start? Findings from the CALP Network commissioned high level briefing paper at the time of COVID-19
Webinar
State of the World’s Cash 2020 Chapter 8 summary: Linking CVA and social protection
Report
Longstanding efforts to strengthen links between humanitarian CVA and social protection have been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, with significant progress since the last report. CVA should aim to complement robust social protection systems where they exist and contribute to their strengthening where they are weak or early-stage. This chapter asks: ‘What opportunities and challenges...
Supporting the Linkages Between Humanitarian Cash and Voucher Assistance and National Social Protection Systems
Report
This tipsheet aims to support country-level coordination efforts to strengthen the engagement between humanitarian coordination groups that implement cash and voucher assistance (CVA) and existing social
protection or disaster risk reduction coordination actors and groups. In particular, it seeks to offers inter-cluster and cash working group coordinators simple practical tips for engaging...
Case Studies
Linking CVA and Social Protection in the MENA Region – Crib sheet
Report
Building linkages between humanitarian cash and voucher assistance (CVA) and social protection (SP) has become an increasingly prominent topic over the past five years and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has been at the centre of this evolution. The objective of this resource set (the crib sheet and 3, soon to be 6, regional case studies) is to ensure that the CALP Network...
Linking CVA and Social Protection in the MENA Region – Iraq Case Study
Report
Building linkages between humanitarian cash and voucher assistance (CVA) and social protection (SP) has become an increasingly prominent topic over the past five years and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has been at the centre of this evolution. The objective of this resource set (the crib sheet and 3, soon to be 6, regional case studies) is to ensure that the CALP Network...
Linking CVA and Social Protection in the MENA Region – Lebanon Case Study
Report
Building linkages between humanitarian cash and voucher assistance (CVA) and social protection (SP) has become an increasingly prominent topic over the past five years and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has been at the centre of this evolution. The objective of this resource set (the crib sheet and 3, soon to be 6, regional case studies) is to ensure that the CALP Network...
Linking CVA and Social Protection in the MENA Region – Yemen Case Study
Case Study
Building linkages between humanitarian cash and voucher assistance (CVA) and social protection (SP) has become an increasingly prominent topic over the past five years and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has been at the centre of this evolution. The objective of this resource set (the crib sheet and 3, soon to be 6, regional case studies) is to ensure that the CALP Network...
Linking Cash and Voucher Assistance (CVA) and Social Protection – Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT): Country Summary
Report
This country summary is part of a larger resource set, providing practitioners with examples of different approaches to linking CVA
and social protection.
Linking Cash and Voucher Assistance (CVA) and Social Protection – Turkey: Country Summary
Report
This country summary is part of a larger resource set, providing practitioners with examples of different approaches to linking CVA
and social protection.
Linking Cash and Voucher Assistance (CVA) and Social Protection – Lebanon: Country Summary
Report
This country summary is part of a larger resource set, providing practitioners with examples of different approaches to linking CVA
and social protection.
Thematic lead
Latest
Payment Mechanisms and Anti-Poverty Programs: Evidence from a Mobile Money Cash Transfer Experiment in Niger
Report
Cash transfers have become an increasingly important component of social protection policies in both developed and developing countries. While such programs are often implemented electronically in developed countries, in many developing countries with weak financial infrastructure, such transfers are...
Sector Indicator Guidance for Programming
Guidelines and Tools
The country Programming Instructions that were sent to EU Delegations and HQ services in mid-May 2012 for the programming period 2014-2020, requested the EU Delegations and services to provide, in the second phase of the programming process, a description of specific objectives for proposed priority...
Lesotho: A Safety Net to End Extreme Poverty
Report
The objective of this study is to help the government to decide what role safety net and transfer programs should play in the coming 5 to 10 years. It seeks to answer three questions: Can increased spending on transfers accelerate poverty reduction in the medium to long term? Which groups and aspects of...
A Guide to Calculating the Cost of Delivering Cash Transfers in Humanitarian Emergencies – With reference to case studies in Kenya and Somalia
Report
The emergence of cash transfers as a viable alternative to in-kind aid – such as food or shelter materials – for households affected by humanitarian disasters has been documented for some years now. Under certain conditions, when local markets are able to accommodate increased demand and prices will...
Pilots, principles or patronage: what makes social protection succeed in southern Africa?
Report
The Regional Hunger and Vulnerability Programme (RHVP) has commissioned studies of 20 social transfer schemes and a range of thematic papers on the conceptualisation, design, implementation and impacts of social protection programmes in six southern African countries: Lesotho, Malawi....
Testing Branchless Banking to Deliver Cash Transfers in Nepal
Policy paper
The Human Development Social Protection Pilot (HDSPP) is a sub-project of the joint UNDP-UNCDF Local Governance and Community Development Program (LGCDP). It has been initiated in two far-western districts in Nepal, Kanchanpur and Dhadheldura and it is being implemented by the Ministry of Federal Affairs...
Effects of the Palestinian National Cash Transfer Programme on Children and Adolescents
Report
Over the past two decades, social protection programmes have been implemented in many developing countries to reduce poverty and vulnerabilities in the face of context-specific challenges such as economic crises,inequality and exclusion, and human development deficits. The multidimensional...
Support to Lesotho HIV and AIDs Response: Empowerment of Orphans and Other Vulnerable Children
Report
Oxford Policy Management (OPM) has been contracted by UNICEF Lesotho to undertake the final evaluation of the Project “Support to Lesotho HIV and AIDS Response: Empowerment of Orphans and Vulnerable Children”. The main objective of this evaluation is to provide decision makers in the Government of...
Social protection in developing countries – The Lesotho Old Age Pension (MSc Thesis)
Report
By using the example of the noncontributory pension scheme in Lesotho, the author explores the process of implementing social protection in developing countries, looking at how constraints can be overcome and what consequences can be found. This paper also looks at the justification for directing such...
Leveling the Playing Field: How do we make social protection more transformative?
Policy paper
Today social protection has a central place in development agenda. It is no longer seen just as protection for the poor but also as a way to promote growth by transforming the poor into a productive force to boost national economies. Nepal adopted this idea earlier than many other countries in the region....
Scaling Up Existing Social Safety Nets to Provide Humanitarian Response: A case study of Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme and Kenya’s Hunger Safety Net Programme
Policy paper
A case study of Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme and Kenya’s Hunger Safety Net Programme. This thematic report has been undertaken as part of a 2013 research study entitled, Is Cash Transfer Programming ‘Fit for the Future’? The research was commissioned by the the CALP Network and...
The Public Pursuit of Secure Welfare: Background Paper on International Development Institutions, Social Protection & Developing Countries
Report
This paper provides an overview of the development of the conceptual framework underlying social protection programming and policy among the key international development institutions active in this sector. It sets out the historical, institutional and political factors underlying the current debate,...
The Economic Impacts of Cash Transfer Programmes in Sub-Saharan Africa
Report
This brief brings together the critical mass of evidence that has emerged from recent rigorous impact evaluations of government-run cash transfer programmes in sub-Saharan Africa. Most, but not all, of the programmes belong to the Transfer Project, a community of practice created to share lessons,...
Cash Transfers and Resilience: Strengthening Linkages Between Emergency Cash Transfers and National Social Transfer Programmes in the Sahel – Discussion Paper
Report
This discussion paper has been inspired by the exchanges that took place during the course of the learning event. It seeks to extend the discussion to include other actors working within the region, as well as in other regions confronted with the same questions. It proposes an initial approach to the...
Government Uptake of Cash Transfer Programming: Trends, characteristics and potential implications for international humanitarian actors in emergency response
Policy paper
Trends, characteristics and potential implications for international humanitarian actors in emergency response. This thematic report has been undertaken as part of a 2013 research study entitled, Is Cash Transfer Programming ‘Fit for the Future’? The research was commissioned by the the CALP...
The EU and Social Protection in Africa
Report
The European Report on Development recommends that the EU should make social protection an integral and central component of its development policy. But what can the EU bring to the social protection agenda of African and other developing countries?
Surveying Livelihoods Service Delivery and Governance: Baseline evidence from Nepal
Report
In 2012/13, SLRC implemented the first round of an original cross-country panel survey in Nepal designed to produce information on: people’s livelihoods (income-generating activities, asset portfolios, food security, constraining and enabling factors within the broader institutional and geographical...
Factors Affecting the Cost-efficiency of Electronic Transfers in Humanitarian Programmes
Report
Led by Oxford Policy Management (OPM) with support from Concern Worldwide, this research aims to answer the key question: Are electronic transfers more cost-efficient than traditional manual based cash delivery methods, and under what conditions? Cash is increasingly offered to households in...
Africa Social Protection Policy Briefs – Affordability and Financing of Social Protection Systems
Report
Social protection spending as a share of each national economy tends to increase as the country’s per capita income rises and as the coverage and scope of its social protection programs increase. Overall spending on social protection in Africa is low by international standards (see box below), and these...
Social transfers in the fight against hunger – A resource for development practitioners
Report
A European Commission Reference Document aims to deepen the understanding of a concept, develop knowledge, provide orientations for aid implementation, and present good practices. This Reference Document is intended as a resource to support the practical integration of social transfers into programmes...
