Input or outcome?lessons from designing and implementing safety net

programs to build resilience of poor people and vulnerable communities

Dr Rachel Slater

Presentation prepared for Building Resilience for Food and Nutrition Security

Addis Ababa, 15-17 May , 2014

Outline

• Context – why social protection and resilience? • Is it specific types of social protection instruments

themselves, or specific features of the programme design, or elements of programme implementation that have resulted in enhancing people’s resilience?

Five programmes:- Meket Livelihoods Development Programme (MLDP) in

Ethiopia- Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) in Ethiopia- Northern Uganda Social Action Fund 2 (NUSAF2) in

Karamoja, Uganda- Hunger Safety Net Programme (HSNP) in Kenya- Protracted Relief Programme (PRP) in Zimbabwe

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‘People are more resilient to the extent that they are able to meet

more of their needs and have security that they will be able to meet future needs (access to health, education,

water, sanitation, shelter) even in the face of modest shocks and stresses..’

Slater et al 2013

Input or outcome? Social protection and resilience

Social protection can play two linked but discrete roles in assisting households or people to meet their needs: • Enhancing livelihoods: social protection is an instrument

that over time helps people build their ability to cope independently i.e. without assistance. (For example, social protection programmes may enable households to increase assets that either enable them to earn enough or which they can use to buffer themselves against shocks and stresses);

• Guaranteeing consumption or support during difficult times: social protection can ensure that people’s basic consumption needs are met. Beyond this it can give people increased freedom from exploitation or from a need to engage in distress strategies if it gives them security, i.e. if they know in advance that they can rely on such social protection in times of crisis.

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Is SP alone is enough?Yes / No?

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What features contribute to resilience?

• combining instruments or linking explicitly to other complementary instruments

• longer programme duration allowing beneficiaries to receive transfers (and other support) over a longer timeframe.

• capability to increase the level of benefits received during shock events such as drought..

• using a clear and realistic logic for achieving graduation..

• adaptation / flexibility matters

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What challenges undermine resilience through social protection?

• Unrealistic expectations of asset accumulation given the duration, type and level of transfers.

• Shocks, especially food price inflation.• Too limited a range of options for investments in

livelihoods• Imbalance between the objective of maintaining

consumption and that of promoting asset accumulation.

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Making it real: Priorities for policy-makers

Q: What really matters for achieving resilience?

A: A meaningful level of transfer, for a reasonable duration of time, in a reliable way, at the right time of year

Have we ever given basic social transfers a chance?

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Conclusions

• Avoid the general tendency across all the programmes to underestimate the complexity of graduation / resilience programming and to oversell what the programmes can deliver. (Note: overselling has tended to have taken place not at the local / programme level but at donor agencies headquarters where expectations have increased and become unrealistic)

• How? Concentrate on getting the basic programme right - having as few objectives as possible; using simple social transfer instruments only with no ‘add-ons’, delivering on time and when you say you will.

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Thank you!