Leveraging social protection for gender equality and climate resilience

Presented by:

Jumoke Adeyeye (IITA)�HER+ Dialogue�Abuja, Nigeria�October 9, 2024

Social protection is a core strategy for addressing poverty and vulnerability globally – and rapidly expanding in Africa

• Social protection (SP): Programs & policies aimed at reducing poverty and vulnerability over the life-course
• Includes cash transfers and food transfers (including through public works), often with bundled activities like trainings
• Shown to be very effective for reducing poverty and improving food security at the household level

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• SP coverage in Africa had already been rapidly expanding prior to COVID-19 – with many new programs afterward

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Growing coverage of SP in Africa pre-COVID-19

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HER+ research assesses how to design SP for women’s climate resilience & gender equality – to guide stakeholders on what works

• Why consider SP for these objectives?
• SP already reaches many poor households in climate-affected settings
• If appropriately designed: Resource transfers + bundled activities can address women’s inequitable access to resources, information, services

• support coping with and adapting to climate change
• address some structural drivers of gender equality

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• HER+ research aims to guide stakeholders on SP’s potential to support women’s climate resilience and gender equality at large scale, and which designs are promising.
• Work across Africa and South Asia – with examples today of high-level findings and case studies

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Snapshots of selected research

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Evidence review: SP’s potential to promote women’s and girls’ climate resilience in LMICs (Hidrobo et al. 2024)

1. Standard SP approaches strengthen households’ coping during climate hazards, reducing actions that disproportionately harm women and girls (WGs)�
• SP avoids disproportionately reducing WGs’ consumption, removing girls from school.
• Promising designs: cash transfers, school feeding, public works, graduation programs.

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• SP can promote diversifying livelihoods, preparing for disasters, and adopting climate-smart practices – but less is known about gender-disaggregated effects, and bundled activities may matter�
• SP can promote participation in off-farm work, investment in productive assets, disaster preparation such as evacuation, adoption of soil and water conservation structures.
• But more gender-disaggregated evidence is needed.
• Promising designs: Bolstered by addition of trainings, linkages to early warning systems of disaster risk.

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• For transformative effects on WGs’ climate resilience, intentional design is critical: SP must account for WGs’ preferences, needs, voices, normative context around climate adaptation�

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Ethiopia: Adding livelihood & nutrition components to SP offsets the adverse effects of drought on women’s diets, BMI, and experience of intimate partner violence (Hirvonen et al. 2023)

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Framework & case examples: How to integrate gender transformative approaches into social protection (Cole et al. 2023)

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Takeaways and looking ahead

• SP has significant potential to strengthen women’s climate resilience at large scale.
• Evidence shows that SP can be effective in promoting women’s coping and adaptation – with emerging evidence on promising designs.
• But more research is needed to guide making context-specific SP designs more intentionally gender- and climate-responsive.

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• Co-design bundles – based on diverse women’s context-specific preferences & constraints for adaptation
• Co-develop and test strategies with stakeholders to understand what works – seeking approaches that are cost-effective and logistically feasible, to advance women’s climate resilience and promote gender equality at large scale.

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Thank you!

(o.adeyeye@cgiar.org)