Adaptive social protection (ASP) is a relatively new approach within the social protection sector, which has not yet been fully realised in a national system, although several countries are making important steps towards this goal (e.g. Malawi in Africa and Indonesia in South Asia). For this reason, this working paper draws on existing sector reviews in social protection systems with various degrees of shock-responsiveness. The lessons learnt by key leading stakeholders (predominantly consultants and international funding and technical partners involved in the review process) are a precious resource for defining strategic recommendations towards successfully organizing and managing joint reviews in cross-sectoral environments.

The objective of this working paper is to contribute to the promotion of ASP as a relevant approach to addressing poverty and vulnerability to shocks, through a more focused, structured, and forward-looking dialogue between key stakeholders from different relevant sectors. Specifically, this paper intends to orient social protection practitioners on how to approach, structure and facilitate a joint review that involves different sector ministries in order to strengthen a social protection system’s shock-responsiveness and adaptiveness.