Presentat ion at the CaLP As ia Regional Learn ing Event - Rev iew of Lessons Learned and Recommendat ions f rom Typhoon Haiyan and Recent Emergenc ies

ResearchShock-ResponsiveSocial Protection Systems

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1. Who We Are: The Programme Setup

Consortium: Oxford Policy Management (lead) Overseas Development Institute Cash Learning Partnership INASP

Research Advisory Group: External experts

Funding: DFID’s Humanitarian Innovation and Evidence Programme (HIEP)

Timeframe: March 2015 – March 2017 (24 months)

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2. Overview of the Research: Objectives

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Overall Objective

To strengthen the evidence base as to when and how social protection systems can better scale up in response to covariant shocks in low-income countries and fragile and conflict-affected states, thus minimising negative shock impacts and reducing the need for separate humanitarian responses

Specific Objectives

1. To enhance understanding of enabling factors and barriers

2. To provide country-level recommendations

3. To develop practical guidance for designing and implementing shock-responsive social protection systems

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2. Overview of the Research: Main Expected Outputs

Augmented synthesis of the social protection shock response literature

In-depth country case studies

Practical guidance/toolkit that speak to both humanitarian and social protection audiences

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2. Overview of the Research: Research Question & Design

Research Question

Under what conditions can social protection systems be responsive to shocks and deliver effective shock response?

Sub-questions to be developed during the inception phase (March-July 2015)

Research Design

In-depth country case studies– 3 countries in the Sahel– 3 countries outside the Sahel

Set of countries to be defined during the inception phase (March-July 2015)

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2. Overview of the Research

Social Protection: Meant to protect people in the event of a shock. Social protection policy pursues three main objectives: poverty reduction, consumption/income smoothing over the course of people’s lifetimes (includes idiosyncratic and covariate shock response), redistribution and inequality reduction (also, guaranteeing rights).

Shocks: For the purpose of this research, we will give primary attention to recurrent/cyclical covariant shocks that affect a large share of the population and result in a ‘crisis situation’—that is, shocks that are likely to trigger an international humanitarian response.

Social protection providers: Focusing on formal and semi-formal forms of social protection, we distinguish four main types of actors—this typology will be refined in the course of the research: National bodies in charge of social protection/delivering social protection programmes; Foreign aid actors engaged in social protection/poverty reduction; National bodies in charge of emergency response/disaster management; Humanitarian actors.

Social protection instruments: Social protection includes a range of policy instruments including in-kind (e.g. food, vouchers) and cash transfers, school feeding, active labour market programmes, public works programmes, subsidies

Maturity of national social protection system: Inexistent, emerging humanitarian-led system, Very early stage of state-led system, Early stage of state-led system, Growth stage of state-led system, Maturity stage of state-led system.

Scale-up in response to shocks: the term ‘scale-up’ will this specifically refer to the scaling up of the level of protection/assistance that vulnerable people affected by a shock can benefit.

Shock-responsive social protection system: We argue that the concept of shock-responsive social protection system refers implicitly to covariate shocks specifically. Indeed, the case of covariant shocks present specific challenges for a social protection system. It implies that an extra number of individuals are in need of social protection benefits at the same time (or the same number of individuals are in need of extra benefits).

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2. Overview of the Research

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3. Country Case Study Selection

3 countries in depth, and doing 3 light-touch reviews.

3 regions: (1) West Africa (2) East / Southern Africa (3) Asia, with one in-depth and one light-touch in each.

On the basis of our indications their preferences for countries are:

  West Africa: In-depth: Mali. Light-touch: Review of regional systems. East / Southern Africa: In-depth: Mozambique. Light-touch: Lesotho? Open to

alternatives. Asia: In-depth: Pakistan. Light-touch: Philippines.

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4. Research Uptake Strategy

What are the objectives of developing a research uptake strategy?   Contribution to theory: Promoting the use of our research findings in international

debates Contribution to practice: Encouraging donors and policymakers on the ground to

use our findings in their programme design and implementation Contribution to capacity-building: Thinking how we can build the capacity of

designers and implementers to use the findings, eg. by presenting the results in a way that's most accessible to them

The strategy will have three components:  Stakeholder analysis - Why might people be interested in our research? Why might

we be interested in them (influence, knowledge...) Communications - How are we going to reach these people to meet our objectives? Capacity-building

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5. Questions

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Part 2: The Philippines (and/ or the wider region). Now and the Future

Please outline the CURRENT system (re. response to shocks)?  What are the trigger points for humanitarian response e.g. indicators? Are there other factors that enable scale up of response? Can international funding be accessed for some shocks but not others? Are national systems

more geared towards coping with some shocks and not others? What types of crisis trigger particular international responses?

To what extent are social protection systems shock-responsive? What are the opportunities and bottlenecks of using cash?  Have there been other responses, apart from cash, used in response to shocks by

organisations’ within the group? If yes, or if other responses are known about, what currently works effectively? E.g. subsidies What works less effectively and why is this? Potential challenges in using social protection mechanisms to respond to shocks? When does social protection take over from humanitarian response? Who do programmes/ interventions get handed over to? How does this take place? How do you interact with national bodies? Indicators of success? Why are the systems the way they are?

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Part 2: The Philippines (and/ or the wider region). Now and the Future

What SHOULD such a system look like?

How would you like to see the system (humanitarian and otherwise) respond to shocks?

What role would humanitarian and development agencies play in such a system?

Would the trigger points for intervention be different? Would inter agency social protection tools be used differently? When should social protection take over from humanitarian response? Who would programmes be handed over to?  How do you build capacity so

that the national system can take over? Vision for the short, medium and longer term? Challenges to making this a reality? Can social protection, climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction

communities work together to strengthen household resilience?

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Part 3: Next steps

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CONTACTING US

Project Manager

Clare O’Brien (clare.obrien@opml.co.uk)

FCAS Expert (Joanna Buckley) joanna.buckley@opml.co.uk

Webpage

http://www.opml.co.uk/projects/shock-responsive-social-protection-systems

Twitter

#shockresponsiveSP

The research team welcomes news of any relevant interventions or related studies being undertaken. We would be happy to include information from these in our research. Do also contact us if you have any questions about the research programme, or if you would like to receive communications about the project findings.