Social Protection across the Humanitarian-Development Nexus: Collection of Voices & Views articles

A collection of Voices & Views articles on bridging the humanitarian and development sectors is available on Capacity4dev. This discussion is constantly updated with recently published articles.

Graduation from social protection: What it means, how it works 

An approach to poverty reduction called the graduation model may offer a fresh and promising path to tackling poverty and vulnerability in the long term.

Social protection across the humanitarian and development nexus  

The European Commission has created a guidance package for humanitarian and development staff with latest insights and strategies on working with social protection in fragile, conflict and displacement situations. (...) The guidance package, first presented at a European Commission staff seminar hosted in Paris in January 2019, provides latest insights on working with social protection in fragile, conflict and displacement situations from humanitarian and development perspectives. (...)

Beyond cash transfers: Social protection in fragile contexts

Four-fifths of humanitarian crises now last five years or more, causing traditional short-term responses to become increasingly recurrent. It is therefore important to start thinking long-term while responding to immediate needs. One recent innovation is cash transfers delivered directly to people caught up in humanitarian crisis – a step towards social protection, traditionally the domain of longer-term development actors. (...)

From the ground up: The long road to social protection in Somalia

Most of the humanitarian response in Somalia remains focused on short-term assistance that doesn’t address the underlying causes of poverty and vulnerability among Somali communities. The growing consensus among the international actors is that more long-term approaches are needed to make a sustainable difference in people's lives. (...)

Expanding Turkey’s social protection systems to refugees

During the Syrian crisis, Turkey has become home to over 3 million refugees - the largest number of refugees in a single host country in the world. The majority – about 90% – live not in refugee camps, but in poor areas of towns and cities. Their refugee status should entitle them to basic social protection, but national systems struggle to absorb them, and 82% are thought to live below the poverty line. (...)

Partnership for Prospects: Helping Syrian refugees find employment in the Middle East

The growing consensus among the international community is that humanitarian interventions need to have more sustainable elements in order to provide more than temporary relief. One programme that attempts to deliver both-short term relief and longer-term development impact is the Partnership for Prospects, a scheme for Syrian refugees and host communities across the Middle East, run by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). (...)

Social protection and humanitarian actors: Q&A with Monique Pariat, Director-General of ECHO

According to Monique Pariat, the Director-General of the European Commission’s humanitarian arm ECHO, social protection can be a bridge between humanitarian and development approaches, helping the most vulnerable populations in a more efficient and effective way. Ms Pariat spoke to Capacity4dev about ECHO’s work to support long-term, shock-responsive social protection systems around the world. (...)

Yemen: Community-based support in times of war

Yemen, one of the poorest countries in the world, descended into a full-fledged military conflict in March 2015. Today, 21.1 million people – or nearly 80% of the population – require humanitarian aid or protection support, with 17 million people in need of food, including 2 million children. Most of the country’s formal social protection systems have collapsed. The Social Welfare Fund, which used to provide unconditional cash transfers, was suspended in 2015. Other key welfare and development funds are non-functional. (...)

Shock protection: Linking humanitarian aid and social protection

After natural disasters a lot of funding goes into the humanitarian response – but it’s an inefficient way of funding what is essentially a chronic problem, according to expert Nicholas Freeland. Panelists from the European Development Days discuss investing in social protection and resilience as a better avenue for the response, and share lessons learned from social protection systems in Malawi and Ghana. (...)