Social protection programmes delivered to the poorest and most vulnerable households, when designed appropriately, can have a transformative impact on their resilience to covariate shocks. Through the provision of transfers and services to the poorest and most vulnerable households, adaptive social protection (ASP) directly supports their capacity to prepare for, cope with, and adapt to the shocks they face. Over the long term, by supporting these three capacities, ASP can provide a pathway to a more resilient state for households that may otherwise lack the resources to move out of chronically vulnerable situations.

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Recognise ASP as a dedicated focus area within the wider field of social protection;
• Identify the ways in which social protection systems can be adapted to build the resilience of poor and vulnerable households - before, during, and after shocks occur.

As a self-paced course, you can choose to start and end it at any time, going through its content and activities at your own pace. The course requires three hours of learning time to complete. After concluding all required activities, including module quizzes and an evaluation survey, you can earn a certificate of completion. 

This micro course is divided in the following modules:

• Module 1: Introduction to Adaptive Social Protection
• Module 2: Programmes - Design Considerations for Building Resilience
• Module 3: Data and Information - Understanding Risk and Household Vulnerability
• Module 4: Finance - Applying a Disaster Risk Financing Approach
• Module 5: Institutional Arrangements and Partnerships - Multisectoral Coordination and Humanitarian Linkages
• Module 6: Conclusion

Duration: 3 hours.

The course was developed by the International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth (IPC-IG) and is the fourth of a micro-course series on Social Protection Fundamentals and Topics, sponsored by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). It is based on the World Bank publication ‘Adaptive Social Protection Building Resilience to Shocks, authored by Thomas Bowen, Carlo del Ninno, Colin Andrews, Sarah Coll-Black, Ugo Gentilini, Kelly Johnson, Yasuhiro Kawasoe, Adea Kryeziu, Barry Maher, and Asha Williams.