climate change

Managing Disaster Differently: Shock-Sensitive Social Protection in Malawi

Sebastian Kuhn's picture
Submitted by Sebastian Kuhn
on Thu, 01/03/2018 - 11:16
Trials of CIAT-improved "magic beans" in Malawi, which have performed well despite the the worst drought in three decades. CGIAR, 2016
The webinar, titled Managing Disaster Differently: Shock-Sensitive Social Protection in Malawi, took place on the 15 February, 2018. It highlighted Malawi’s heightened vulnerability to seasonal and unpredictable climate-related shocks, which exacerbate its already high levels of poverty and food and nutrition insecurity. The webinar drew on information compiled in a recent report, Towards Shock-Sensitive Social Protection System in Malawi , undertaken by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre (RCRCCC), and commissioned by the Government of Malawi (GoM) with financial support from Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and through the German contribution to the European Union (EU) Social Protection System...Read more

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Climate change adaptation for smallholder farmers in the Lake Chad Basin

Oladayo Awojobi's picture
Submitted by Oladayo Awojobi
on Fri, 22/12/2017 - 13:27
Photo: UN Security Council United Kingdom Field Mission to the Lake Chad Basin. Photo credit: Lorey Campese, 2014, Flickr.
The Lake Chad Basin (LCB) is among the world’s biggest, located in the Sahel region of Africa (Abubakar, n.d.). It also has one of the largest sedimentary closed groundwater basins in the whole of the African continent. With its vast pasture of cultivable land and wealthy fish stocks, it is an essential area both economically and environmentally to the riparian states of Chad, Cameroon, Libya, Nigeria and Niger (GIZ, 2015b). Photo: UN Security Council United Kingdom Field Mission to the Lake Chad Basin . Photo credit: Lorey Campese, 2014, Flickr. Approximately 38 million people from diverse ethnic cultures presently live in the LCB (GIZ, 2015b). The majority of these people are from poor rural households and survive on subsistence farming (GIZ, 2015b). Recent occurrences, due to...Read more

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Cash transfers and climate change resilience in Africa

Oladayo Awojobi's picture
Submitted by Oladayo Awojobi
on Wed, 15/11/2017 - 19:34
The African Development Bank is working with the Climate Investment Funds' Pilot Program for Climate Resilience in southern Mozambique (2014). Photo credit: CIF Action, Flickr
Social protection, particularly in the form of cash transfer programmes, are being implemented to mitigate poverty in Africa. Cash transfer programming involves providing cash or vouchers to beneficiaries instead of in-kind aid, such as clothes or food (CARE Programmes, 2017). Evidence shows that most cash transfer programmes have positive impacts on their beneficiaries (Asfaw et al., 2014; Daidone et al., 2015). While cash transfer programmes are designed to protect the effect of poverty on the poor, there is growing evidence that cash transfers can help in building resilience to climate change. This is achieved by increasing human capital, facilitating changes in economic activities by decreasing liquidity constraints, improving natural resource management, and building local economics...Read more

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Adaptive and Shock Responsive Social Protection in the Caribbean: Putting People at the Centre of Resilience and Response

Francesca Ciardi's picture
Submitted by Francesca Ciardi
on Wed, 29/05/2019 - 11:14
The increased intensity of hydro meteorological events in Caribbean countries in recent years has altered landscapes, damaged infrastructure, debilitated economies, and threatens to undermine development and growth. In the midst of these impacts are Caribbean people, whose livelihoods, income, homes, well-being, and ultimately, survival, are directly threatened by climate and disaster risks. Take for instance, Hurricane Maria’s impact on Dominica in September 2017. The event caused damages and losses amounting to 226% of the country’s GDP; damaged 90% of the country’s housing stock; and affected approximately 77% of the population [1] . At the center of the disaster, were families like Josiah Stewart, who along with his mother, grandmother, and sisters lost their home and all their...Read more

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Five key principles for adaptive social protection programming

Alex Cornelius's picture
Submitted by Alex Cornelius
on Mon, 26/11/2018 - 11:40
‘Adaptive Social Protection’ (ASP) came from a realisation that social protection, disaster risk reduction, and climate change adaptation were three communities of practice linked by the same fundamental objective of reducing vulnerability and building resilience. Within each of these communities is a wealth of experience, tools and methods, that, if explored together, may reveal commonalities, overlapping agendas and synergies. Operationalising ASP requires a framework that supports an optimal blend of social protection programmes, climate change projects, and disaster risk reduction interventions, to bring out the best of each. ASP is still a relatively new concept, which hasn’t yet been trialled extensively enough to know how to do it well, or even how to do it. Through our work to...Read more

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Is my social protection programme ‘shock-responsive’ or ‘adaptive’?

Alex Cornelius's picture
Submitted by Alex Cornelius
on Thu, 08/11/2018 - 11:32
What is adaptive social protection? How does it differ from shock responsive social protection? Why does it matter? These were some of the questions we’ve been asked over the past three years while working with governments in the Sahel to help set up their adaptive social protection programmes. The concepts of Shock responsive social protection (SRSP) and Adaptive social protection (ASP) are very similar, and despite much having been written about them in the wider literature, there are no agreed definitions for either. You could then, question whether these two concepts are referring to the same type of programme – depending on what happens to be du jour in a particular country, institution or donor or are they in fact two closely related but fundamentally different types of...Read more

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Maldives was one of the world’s 20 poorest countries in the early 1980s. Three decades later, its inhabitants enjoy the same levels of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and human development outcomes as a middle-income country. Over the past 30 years, Maldives has successfully built on its extraordinary natural assets to promote growth and socioeconomic development.

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Population growth, inflation and food insecurity in Pakistan

Mariam Khan's picture
Submitted by Mariam Khan
on Mon, 23/07/2018 - 13:50
Photo credit: Displaced Pakistanis pull a cartload of rations distributed by the UN World Food Programme (WFP) at a tent camp in Naseerabad, Balochistan Province. UN Photo Library.
In March 2018,the former federal cabinet of Pakistan approved 'a new and improved version of the Pakistan National Food Security Policy after years of development by the Ministry of National Food Security and Research. This was well received as about 60% of Pakistan's population is food insecure according to the World Food Programme (WFP). This revised version of the policy states that agriculture growth rate is expected to rise by 4% each year, overtaking the 2.5% rate achieved in 2008. To achieve this set target is a magnanimous task for a nation that is projected to have a population of 335 million by 2050, almostdoubling their population today. In Hunger Pains: Pakistan's Food Insecurity , Michael Kugelman writes: Today’s statistics about food insecurity in Pakistan — the 77...Read more

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FAO’s 43rd Session of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS): food security, 2030 Agenda, and climate change (Part 2 of 2)

Felipe Albuquerque's picture
Submitted by Felipe Albuquerque
on Tue, 04/07/2017 - 14:11
During an opening statement at the 43rd Session of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) held last October in Rome, the former United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, emphasized the interrelation between food security, sustainable development, and climate change. His words set the tone for the meeting, which was named “making a difference in food security and nutrition” and also figures as the subject of a previous blog post. In the speech, he remembered the collective effort to end hunger and invited parties to fulfill their roles in implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement, topics that comprise the center points of this piece. [1] The CFS focuses on assuring food security and nutrition to all, especially those most vulnerable, food...Read more

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The World Economic and Social Survey 2016 contributes to the debate on the implementation challenges of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

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