This month’s newsletter is dedicated to Social Protection in Humanitarian, Fragile and Risk-Prone Contexts in light of the first-ever World Humanitarian Summit, which will take place in Istanbul on 23-24 May 2016. socialprotection.org is an unbranded initiative, born out of the SPIAC-B. The SPIAC-B supports the dissemination of a joint member statement at the World Humanitarian Summit, aimed at the expansion and strengthening of social protection systems in addressing chronic vulnerabilities and to scale up their utilization as a means of responding to shocks and protracted crises.
Over the past decade, social protection has emerged as an important social policy measure to address vulnerability to shocks. Consequently, there has been increasing interest in forging better links between humanitarian aid and social protection systems to reduce the need for recurrent humanitarian aid and facilitate improved crisis response.
This month’s newsletter showcases the progress being made in strengthening the design of existing social protection systems to make them ‘shock responsive’, featuring examples of efforts highlighting the role of these systems in delivering humanitarian aid.
Over the past 7 months, socialprotection.org has amassed 950 members from over 100 countries, affiliated to more than 100 institutions.
Join the Gender-Sensitive Online Community to join the post webinar discussion and stay up-to-date on the Gender-Sensitive Social Protection Webinar Series.
You can also access publications and presentations on the topic.
Thank you to all those who applied to the second session of the Ambassador Programme! The new Programme is set to launch soon!
Share your social protection related content with a network of over 800 experts on socialprotection.org. This includes publications, news and events. Simply become a member and access the Share tab.
Oxford Policy Managements’ working paper on Conceptualising Shock-Responsive Social Protection provides insight into the potential for social protection systems in the event of a humanitarian disaster. It also considers how social protection, humanitarian and disaster risk management systems are connected, and the potential challenges of linking them.
Oxfam’s Poverty, Inequality and Social Protection in Lebanon report delves into the impact of the Syrian crisis on Lebanon. Poverty in Lebanon has risen by 66 percent since 2011. This report attempts to gain further insight regarding the struggles of poor Lebanese households alongside Syrian and Palestinian refugee populations in Lebanon. It assesses the policies and programmes implemented by the government and international donors to provide a level of support and social protection.
The report, Violence against women and cash transfers in humanitarian contexts, by the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID), exposes how cash transfers in humanitarian contexts can help people recover from shocks caused by natural disasters or conflicts and have a positive impact on the local economy. Cash transfers can also tend to be more cost efficient than in-kind contributions, thereby positively affecting the lives of women.
Join the Gender-Sensitive Online Community to learn more about how social protection programmes contribute to gender equality and women’s empowerment. The Community is administered by the IPC-IG and FAO. You will also be able to stay up-to-date on the Gender-Sensitive Social Protection Webinar Series as well as have access to the most updated literature on the topic.
The first-ever World Humanitarian Summit, is set to take place in Istanbul on 23-24 May 2016. The Summit aims to re-inspire a commitment to humanity and to the universality of humanitarian principles, initiate a set of concrete actions and commitments aimed at enabling countries and communities to better prepare for and respond to crises and be resilient to shocks, as well as share best practices that can help save lives around the world.
We invite you to participate in this 1 minute Gender-Sensitive Social Protection Survey! Your input will ensure that The Gender and Social Protection Webinar Series features content you are interested in!
The webinar will explore the following topics:
1. The need for and purpose of linking humanitarian Cash Transfer Programmes (CTPs) with social protection;
2. Where is the convergence and how can this be used for humanitarian CTPs;
3. What are the challenges and opportunities;
4. Some examples of how humanitarian CTPs have been linked with social protection in different contexts;
5. The World Humanitarian Summit and associated work on building linkages between social protection and CTPs.
Webinar Panellists: Nupur Kukrety (Consultant, CaLP) Clare O'Brien (Senior Consultant, Poverty and Social Protection, OPM) Paula Gil Baizan (Advocacy Coordinator, CaLP)
Upcoming Webinars:
- June 2,2pm - 3:30pm (UTC+02:00): Another Webinar organized by the Single Registries and Integrated MISs Online Community, this time on Turkey’s Integrated Social Assistance Services System. More details coming soon!
- June: The IPC-IG and HelpAge will present the webinar, Financing Social Protection: Inequality and redistribution: Taxes and Transfers, commencing the Financing Social Protection Webinar Series.
Check out this CaLP Learning Tool, Guidance Notes: Cash Transfers in Livelihoods Programming - West Africa. Humanitarian actors involved in contexts of chronic crisis are beginning to consider the role of cash transfers. In order to enable knowledge and best practices to be shared, a learning workshop on cash transfers and livelihoods was organised in Dakar, Senegal, exploring the design and implementation of programmes that include cash transfer components within a livelihood support framework.
See definitions of social protection and related terms in our Glossary. We invite you to submit your own definition of Humanitarian Aid in the context of social protection.