Social protection (SP) programs are fundamental in responding to the impact of shocks by helping to mitigate their impacts as well as build resilience to future shocks. However, to ensure that the changing needs of the vulnerable populations are met efficiently and effectively, an SP system requires flexibility to adjust its response depending on the circumstances.
Adaptive social protection (ASP) is a focus area within the larger social protection sector, which has emerged in response to the need to build resilience of the poor and vulnerable to covariate shocks, such as natural disasters, economic crises, pandemics, conflicts, and forced displacement. This focus area brings together the social protection, disaster risk management (DRM), and climate change adaptation sectors to leverage their respective contributions in reducing household vulnerability and building household resilience.
A “stress test” of SP systems could help provide information in a relatively simple, analytical and rapid way, on a country’s ability to adapt or scale its SP system as well as to identify priority areas for improvement. An assessment can highlight the coverage of social protection programs for the most vulnerable households including the efficacy and efficiency of those programs. Additionally, it can also identify gaps in social protection programs which can inform future policy.

Year of publication | |
Geographic coverage | Global |
Originally published | 06 Dec 2021 |
Related organisation(s) | World Bank |
Knowledge service | Metadata | Global Food and Nutrition Security | Food security and food crises | Extreme weather eventSafety net |
Digital Europa Thesaurus (DET) | food securitysocial protectionnatural disasterpovertyCrisisrisk management |