CGIAR System Organization - Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centers

01/15/2025 | News release | Distributed by Public on 01/16/2025 02:08

Connecting the Dots: Linking Social Protection to Climate Change

Today the CGIAR FOCUS Climate Security team launches an ArcGISStoryMap that explores the role of social protection for inclusive climate change adaptation and sheds light on some of the key challenges across contexts.

The Storymapshares findings from a studyconducted by the CGIAR FOCUS Climate Security team of the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT within the CGIAR initiative on Gender Equality (HER+). It comprised of a global review of recent progress in concepts, policies and practices relating to linking social protection to climate change adaptation and included three deep dives into social protection landscapes and programmes in India, Jordan and the Sahel region.

Through a literature review, expert interviews and our three regional deep dives, we asked how practices on the ground are changing and how climate change is considered in the design of social protection programmes across different realities.

India's national public works social protection program, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and its scheme by the same name is the largest social protection program in the world. It can therefore offer useful lessons in how large-scale national schemes can be adapted to enhance climate resilience. MGNREGA has been used as a shock response against climate disasters and vulnerability for rural households but in order to contribute to long term climate resilience it must focus on leveraging climate risk information to strengthen inclusive asset planning, particularly for natural resource management. The emphasis should also be expanded from asset creation to maintenance, ownership and use to promote skill development and income generation through value chains.

Jordan offers important insights into how national social protection programmes can link to humanitarian assistance and climate change adaptation. It also raises key concerns related to the social inclusion of marginalised communities like refugees and asylum seekers. However, for social protection programmes to play a meaningful role in contributing to climate adaptation in Jordan, coverage must increase. This can be achieved by expanded enrolment in the Social Security Corporation through formalisation and contribution- support, including for those working in climate-vulnerable sectors.

The Sahel region is experiencing the compounded negative impacts of climate change, instability and conflict. Here, humanitarian responses are employed in a repetitive manner to cope with recurring shocks. In face of significant infrastructure and human resource constraints, building a critical mass of social protection instruments and increasing coverage needs to be complemented with efforts to make existing programmes climate sensitive.

This story map offers an overview of some of the pathways that can bridge social protection to climate change adaptation across various contexts. In doing so, it identifies challenges and areas of opportunity, such as potential co-benefits for women's rights and gender equality, social inclusion and enhanced climate resilience. In contexts as diverse as the Sahel region, Jordan and India, a range of social protection programmes target vulnerable populations in conjunction with investments in land restoration, livelihood diversification and integrated water management.

For more details on the CGIAR studies this Storymap was based on:

Authors: Raramai Campbell, Bina Desai, George Meddings, Peter Laderach and Jonathan Tsoka (Alliance of Bioversity & CIAT)

Artwork: Raramai Campbell (Alliance of Bioversity & CIAT)

Acknowledgements

This work was carried out with support from the CGIAR Initiative on Gender Equality (HER+) and the CGIAR Initiative on Fragility, Conflict, and Migration (FCM). We would like to thank all funders who supported this research through their contributions to the CGIAR Trust Fund: https://www.cgiar.org/funders/