Social Protection & Jobs
DISCUSSION PAPER NO. 1802
Human(itarian) Capital?
Lessons on Better Connecting
Humanitarian Assistance
and Social Protection
Ugo Gentilini, Sarah Laughton and Clare O’Brien
November 2018
Human(itarian)
Capital?
Lessons on Better Connecting
Humanitarian Assistance and
Social Protection
Ugo Gentilini, Sarah Laughton, and Clare O’Brien
November 2018
Abstract. Governments in low- and middle-income countries are increasingly invest-
ing in social protection, and also address many of their own people’s “humanitarian”
needs themselves. For their international partners, who may have an important role
in filling gaps when household needs exceed national capacity to meet them, sup-
port for the strengthening of national systems—combined with a shift from short-run
to more durable approaches—is becoming a unifying framework for assistance. Some
aspects of social protection and humanitarian assistance therefore seem to be on a con-
verging trajectory. “Human(itarian) Capital?” discusses findings from 12 country case
studies exploring the linkages between humanitarian assistance—in its various interpre-
tations—and national social protection systems. Specifically, the paper distills lessons
on how humanitarian assistance and social protection systems might better coexist, the
possible challenges and trade-offs emerging from practical experiences, and how to
facilitate, inform, and accelerate future concerted action.
Keywords: social protection systems; social assistance; humanitarian assistance; cash
transfers; shocks.
JEL codes: P33, P36, I38, H84
C ontents
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
Part I: Conceptual framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2 Defining humanitarian assistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1 Actor-oriented definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.2 Purpose-oriented definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.3 Conflict-centered definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.4 A framework for case studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
PART II: Insights from practical experiences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3 Transfer of international assistance onto national systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.1 Liberia: strengthening social protection systems for pandemics and acute
crises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.2 Palestine: a common programmatic framework for social protection and
humanitarian response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.3 Philippines: channeling donor response to natural disasters via national
structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.4 Takeaways from transferring international assistance onto national systems . . . . . 19
4 Improving links between emergency response and longer-term programming . . . . . 20
4.1 Guinea: school feeding programs in a crisis context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
iii
4.2 Mauritania: crisis response as a catalyst for building social protection . . . . . . . . . . . 21
4.3 Kenya: integrated information management for social protection and drought
response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Human(itarian) Capital?
4.4 Mozambique: enhancing connections between emergency response and
social protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
4.5 Zimbabwe: improving the response to seasonal food insecurity and
re-establishing effective social protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
4.6 Fiji: sequence of government and donor responses to natural disasters . . . . . . . . . . 27
4.7 Lebanon: supporting refugees alongside the national population . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
4.8 Takeaways from linking emergency response and longer-term programming . . . . . 31
5 Provision of social protection in conflict settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
5.1 Syria: protecting lives and human capital during conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
5.2 Yemen: addressing immediate needs and preserving social protection . . . . . . . . . 34
5.3 Takeaways from conflict settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
PART III: Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
6 Emerging lessons and broader reflections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Figures
1 Share of international humanitarian assistance directed to international and
national actors, 2017 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2 Concepts of bridging humanitarian assistance and social protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3 Links between humanitarian assistance and social protection in Palestine . . . . . . . . 17
4 Humanitarian–social protection milestones in Mauritania . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
5 Adapting social protection to conflict in Yemen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Table
1 Situating case studies within a stylized framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
iv
A cknowledgments
W e are grateful to Amir Abdulla, Michal Rutkowski, Steen Jorgensen, Anush
Bezhanyan, Jehan Arulpragasam, Stanlake Samkange, Colin Bruce, Kenn Crossley,
Jon Brause, Ruslan Yemtsov, Denise Brown, Jean-Pierre de Margerie, and Stefano
Paternostro for their guidance and support.
As authors we warmly acknowledge the insights provided by the case studies and the
draft synthesis report which, alongside the broader literature, formed the backbone
for this paper. The studies were authored by Aisha Mansur, Christabel Sefa, Fernando
Aldaba, Flavia Lorenzon, Haneen Ismail Sayed, Henri Leturque, Jennifer Nyanjui, Khalid
Al-Qudsi, Kudzai Chatiza, Louis Rovira, Nicholas Crawford, Pantaleo Creti, Rita Neves,
Sandra Uwantege Hart, Shadiyana Begum, Suleiman Namara, and S. Sarsou. These mate-
rials are available upon request (ugentilini@worldbank.org, sarah.laughton@wfp.org).
We are indebted to many colleagues for their technical advice on the case studies or
the theme more widely, including Afrah Alawi Al-Ahmadi, Aline Coudouel, Andrea
Vermehren, Asaka Nyangara, Carlo Del Ninno, Colin Andrews, David Kamau, Edmundo
Murrugarra, Edouard Nizeyimana, Emma Mistiaen, Eric Zapatero, Giuseppe Zampaglione,
Jean-Noël Gentile, Jesse Doyle, Jordi Renart, Julie Macdonald, Maria Vannari, Massimo
La Rosa, Nicolas Babu, Niels Balzer, Pablo Ariel Acosta, Peter Holtsberg, Phillippe Leite,
Praveen Agrawal, Rene Antonio Leon Solano, Robert Chase, Sarah Coll-Black, Tanuja
Rastogi, Thomas Vaughan Bowen, Tina George, and Yukimi Ogaki.
The paper is meant for discussion purposes and only reflects the views of the authors.
Ugo Gentilini is with the World Bank’s Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice, while
Sarah Laughton and Clare O’Brien are with WFP’s Safety Nets and Social Protection
Unit.
v
Part I
Conceptual
framework
1 Introduction
O ver the decades, the central themes of this paper have taken many names: catchy
nomenclatures like the “humanitarian-development nexus,” “linking relief and devel-
opment,” “development relief,” “doing development differently,” and many others are
evolving variants of a core concept.1 Governments in developing countries address many
of their own people’s “humanitarian” needs themselves, including through the provision
of cash or in-kind transfer programs. But such needs may frequently exceed national
capacities to meet them. Throughout history, the international humanitarian architecture
has played an important role in fulfilling functions that are normally rendered by gov-
ernments. 2 In filling this gap, the interaction between international and national actors
can be complex. In part, this epitomizes a broader tension between the “humanitarian
imperative,” which transcends borders and serves the individual in his own right, and
that of national sovereignty of the state and its capabilities.
Recent experiences offer brighter prospects. Indeed, on balance humanitarian assis-
tance and social protection seem to be on a partly converging trajectory. As this paper
illustrates, building national systems—combined with a shift from short-run to more
durable approaches—is increasingly becoming a unifying framework for assistance pro-
vided by different actors. To some extent, however, a distinctive feature of humanitarian
assistance revolves around the degree of involvement and engagement of national
authorities (Konyndyk 2018; Stoddard 2017). For instance, it is estimated that out of
the $27.2 billion of international humanitarian assistance in 2017, only 2.5 percent was
channeled through host governments (figure 1). The rest was directed outside govern-
ment structures, including via some 4,480 actors comprising international and national
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), civil society, and others. Meanwhile, a number
of national governments are, of course, also allocating domestic resources to address
2
1
For early contributions, see for example the seminal work by Buchanan-Smith and Maxwell
(1994), as well as the discussion in TANGO (2004) and Harmer and Macrae (2004).
2
See Bennett et al. (2016).
1 Introduction
Figure 1 Share of international humanitarian assistance directed to
international and national actors, 2017
Southern international RCRC national societies – 0.03%
96+3+1F NGOs – 0.3% Local NGOs – 0.04%
National NGOs – 0.4%
Local and
International national
responders – 97% responders
– 2.9%
National governments – 2.5%
Internationally
affiliated NGOs
– 0.08%
National foundations – 0.004%
National research institutions
– 0.006%
National private sector
corporations – 0.004%
Source: Adapted from Development Initiatives (2018).
emergencies within their own borders and without recourse to the international com-
munity, e.g., Mexico (Beazley et al. 2016). 3
For international humanitarian actors, the model of operating outside of or with limited
engagement with government systems may be dictated by several constraints, includ-
ing because of the risky operating environment and pressure for ensuring life-saving
goals; possible lack of government sovereignty over a territory in full or part; legisla-
tion preventing some types of domestic assistance to refugees; or concerns about the
impartiality of governments in conflicts. These are no rare circumstances among cur-
rent crisis-affected countries. Operating through parallel systems may also present
an element of institutional expediency, which may enable international aid agencies
to maintain more direct contact with beneficiaries. Efforts by humanitarian actors
to increase national ownership as well as the political and economic sustainability of
state-provided services are aiming to resolve these constraints. Our case studies pro-
vide concrete examples of such efforts.
In contrast, social assistance or safety net programs are operated by and through gov-
ernments. By “social assistance” or “safety nets” we refer to noncontributory transfers
to poor or vulnerable households or individuals. These may be in cash (e.g., child grants,
social pensions) or in kind (e.g., school meals). The term also includes entitlements to
reduced expenditure for poor or vulnerable households, such as targeted subsidies or
It is noteworthy that data on national allocations are not necessarily compiled in the same
3
manner as humanitarian assistance, hence often not appearing in global reporting. 3
Human(itarian) Capital?
fee waivers for essential social services. These programs are components of broader
permanent social protection systems, with the latter also including social insurance (i.e.,
contributory transfers), various labor market interventions, and select social services.
Social protection is provided regularly and on a multiyear basis; it is often enshrined
in legislation, integrated in sectoral policies, financed from domestic budgets, and
represents a cornerstone in government-citizens’ social contracts. In addition, social
protection programs may be planned and coordinated via interministerial committees,
while international humanitarian assistance often rests on the United Nations (UN)
cluster system, which may not systematically involve national authorities. Operating
through governments entails engaging in the political economy of redistribution, and
this can be especially challenging among countries with a long history of sectarian and
ethnic violence.
Given these differences, it can be challenging to reconcile the international nature of
much humanitarian assistance with the demand for increased national ownership—
and short-term planning horizons with the desire for longer-term, more sustainable
approaches. However, emerging experiences show that, for instance, many fragile states
display high levels of ownership despite social protection systems largely resting on
external financing (e.g., Ethiopia and Palestine), including often by the same donors that
finance humanitarian operations. For example, in 17 Sub-Saharan African countries, over
half of spending in social assistance is donor funded (Beegle et al. 2018).4
Several factors—both political and operational—suggest that there is currently an
appetite among governments and their partners for exploring and resolving these chal-
lenges. The literature on this question is extensive (Ulrichs and Sabates-Wheeler 2018;
Winder-Rossi et al. 2017; EC 2017; Kukrety 2016; World Bank 2016; Bastagli 2014;
Cherrier 2014; Kuriakose et al. 2013; McCord 2013; Davies et al. 2009; Harvey 2009).
The core rationales and opportunities include the following:
There is growing collaboration in crisis-affected countries. The long-term plan-
ning of social protection provides a degree of insurance against shocks; but, as
mentioned, these often exceed the capacity of countries to manage them—hence
requiring an additional line of international support. The case studies point to an
increasing practice of dialogue and collaboration among both national and inter-
national actors. Working together through crisis responses and in non-emergency
settings should facilitate better outcomes over time.
Crises are often protracted. About half of the countries submitting a UN appeal in
2016 had done so every year over the past decade (Development Initiatives 2018).
4
In a similar, although less extensive way, social protection programs often make extensive
use of “project implementation units” (PIUs): often proposed by donors, these are structures
4
are formally placed within governments to provide a direct channel for program reporting and
management to external partners. As such, PIUs may enhance project accountability, but also
introduce an element of a “parallel system” that potentially duplicates a mechanism—even an
imperfect one—the country may already have in place.
1 Introduction
Acting early saves costs and human capital. Longer term investments may reduce
the cost of response when a crisis arises. For example, it is estimated that every
$1 spent on social protection and resilience programming in Ethiopia, Kenya and
Somalia, when combined with early intervention around the time of the crisis, results
in net benefits (savings) in the order of $2.30–$3.30 compared to an international
humanitarian response delivered after a crisis has occurred (Cabot Venton 2018). In
a similar vein, the title of the paper, “Human(itarian) Capital?,” taps into the emerg-
ing narrative on human capital. This posits that early investments in preserving and
enhancing people’s human capital (e.g., food security, nutrition, health and educa-
tion) are central to development. 5 Fulfilling those functions during crises thereby
becomes a cogent priority for countries’ future potential.
Reducing duplication of efforts. In Lebanon, for instance, a 2014 review showed
that more than 30 different aid agencies managed cash transfers and vouchers for
14 different objectives, ranging from food to legal assistance (CGD and ODI 2015).
Changing modalities and technologies, including a wider adoption of cash-based
transfers for emergency response. While food assistance has historically played an
important role in crises (Alderman et al. 2017; Gentilini 2016a), the widespread use
of vouchers and cash transfers for international and national emergency responses,
often delivered digitally, is generating more incentives for integrating humanitarian
and government-led social protection delivery systems. Estimates show that cash
transfers in humanitarian settings are estimated at $2.8 billion, a 40 percent increase
from 2015 (CaLP 2018).6
“Meeting halfway.” Wider engagement and investment flexibility are observed in
crisis-affected countries on all sides. Development agencies are expressing greater
willingness to engage in crisis-affected countries, as exemplified by a new commit-
ment in this regard from the World Bank, including for increased grant financing and
expanded concessionary lending (including in middle-income countries). This could
translate into more sustained support for national social protection systems, even in
conflict settings. Meanwhile, international humanitarian actors are increasingly sup-
porting investment in social protection.
But how would enhanced interactions look in practice? This note summarizes main
findings from 12 country case studies exploring the linkages between humanitar-
ian assistance—in its various interpretations—and national social protection systems
(Aldaba 2017; Al-Qudsi 2017; Chatiza 2017; Creti 2017; Ismail Sayed 2017; Leturque
2017; Lorenzon 2017; Mansur et al. 2017; Namara and Sefa 2017; Neves 2017; Nyanjui
2017; Sarsou 2017). The studies point to the conditions under which humanitarian
5
See http://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/human-capital
5
6
According to an independent evaluation, cash transfers are indeed one of the areas where
humanitarian community has achieved most progress among Grand Bargain commitments
(Metcalfe-Hough and Poole 2018).
Human(itarian) Capital?
assistance, with support from international humanitarian agencies such as the World
Food Programme (WFP), and national social protection systems, with support from the
World Bank, have coexisted and converged, how they might or might not reinforce each
other, and their possible limits and trade-offs. The studies do not strongly focus on
national disaster management in emergency preparedness and response, though these
are, of course, central to any consideration of effective crisis response. Nor is this work
about the World Bank and WFP per se, with findings and discussion being meant to
illustrate broader points transcending those institutions.
The purpose of this paper, which draws on global literature, Crawford (2017) as well as
each case study report, is to clarify the ways in which humanitarian assistance and social
protection programmes might better coexist, the circumstances under which conver-
gence might be appropriate, and successes and challenges in doing so. The remainder of
the report is structured as follows: the next section sets out core concepts, definitions,
and a stylized framework situating the individual country experiences. These constitute
Part I of the paper. Part II encompasses sections 3–5, which discuss main country find-
ings complemented by a summary of key “take-aways.” The concluding section 6, which
is Part III of the paper, distills overall lessons and reflects on the social protection–
humanitarian agenda moving forward.
6
2 Defining
humanitarian
assistance
T he concept of “humanitarian assistance,” and its potential connections to social
protection, is subject to interpretation (O’Brien, forthcoming; Roelen et al. 2018;
Gentilini 2016b). The Principles of Good Humanitarian Donorship refer to assistance
that is provided to, “…save lives, alleviate suffering and maintain human dignity during
and after man-made crises and disasters caused by natural hazards, disasters, as well as
to prevent and strengthen preparedness for the occurrence of such situations.” Three
contrasting interpretations of this concept stand out: one that emphasizes the inter-
national or national nature of the actor, one based on the purpose and a subset of the
two, which often emerges from situations of conflict (O’Brien et al. 2018). This varia-
tion reflects the multisectoral nature of the concept and is not inherently problematic;
but it is useful to be aware of the multiple ways in which terms are utilized. The next
subsections review those interpretations to elucidate some key perspectives. These are
followed by a discussion on a set of emerging cross-cutting issues.
2.1 Actor-oriented definition
In a number of instances, humanitarian assistance is synonymous with support funded
by the international community in response to disasters classified as requiring a human-
itarian response. These funds are classified as Official Development Assistance. For the
purposes of setting a convenient boundary between humanitarian assistance, in this
sense, and development assistance, the former is commonly taken to mean the expen-
diture that is reported on the Financial Tracking Service (FTS) of the UN Office for
the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. This comprises the expenditure of national
donor governments (to countries other than themselves), the European Civil Protection
and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO), UN agencies, international NGOs, civil
society organizations, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent movement, multi-
lateral pooled funds and private donors. This information is reported voluntarily so
7
the data may be incomplete. The crucial point for the purposes of this paper is that
Human(itarian) Capital?
the FTS—and therefore this first definition of humanitarian assistance—specifically
excludes “a government’s expenditure on crises within its own borders.”
For those adopting this interpretation, the important policy challenge is the one
expressed in the Grand Bargain, namely to provide 25 percent of international human-
itarian funding to local and national responders by 2020 (United Nations 2016). Social
protection might offer one such channel, though of course not the only one: funds
might also be directed, for example, through a national disaster management authority
or a ministry of health or education. Another challenge might be to explore the feasibil-
ity of sharing delivery platforms between international humanitarian actors and national
social protection programs where they are distributing assistance that has similar fea-
tures, such as cash transfer schemes.
2.2 Purpose-oriented definition
A different interpretation of humanitarian assistance posits that the key question is
not the origin of the support, but what it is intended for, i.e., efforts to prevent and/
or address disasters. Under this definition, which is also widely adopted by the interna-
tional humanitarian community but not confined to it, humanitarian assistance is more
or less synonymous with emergency response. The school of thought comfortable
with this definition is open to the idea that national governments can therefore deliver
humanitarian assistance themselves.
In using this interpretation, the important policy challenge is about finding better
ways of assisting households who are affected by short-term or protracted crises. For
instance, in many countries, “emergency” assistance is delivered on a short-term basis,
and repeatedly, to households who are in fact chronically poor, and who might benefit
more from sustained and predictable assistance of the sort delivered by social protec-
tion programs. The agenda of “linking humanitarian assistance to social protection” may
be about finding a way to transition this caseload from short-term to more system-
atic assistance. Alternatively, for households who are affected by a disaster, it may be
about exploring whether social protection programs offer a better vehicle for deliver-
ing assistance during a response than alternatives (which may or may not be the case),
or whether those households should be integrated into a social protection system after
their emergency assistance ends. It may also refer to opportunities for either the social
protection sector or the disaster risk management sector to integrate systems and pro-
cedures from the other sector, or to learn from them.
These definitions are illustrated in figure 2: the horizontal arrow, “interpretation no. 1,”
shows the concept of the definition where “bridging humanitarian assistance and social
protection” refers to efforts to move from internationally to domestically led support.
The vertical arrow, “interpretation no. 2,” shows the concept of purpose-based defi-
8
nitions, i.e., where the term refers to efforts to move from short-term or emergency
responses—be they nationally or internationally led—to more longer term, sustainable
2 Defining humanitarian assistance
Figure 2 Concepts of bridging humanitarian assistance and social
protection
INTERNATIONAL NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Longer term/ DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMMING
development
ASSISTANCE (INCLUDING
SOCIAL PROTECTION)
DURATION/SUSTAINABILITY
2
Interpretation no. 2
1&
Interpretation no. 2
s.
no
n
tio
ta
re
rp
te
In
Interpretation no. 1
Short term/ INTERNATIONAL NATIONAL
emergency HUMANITARIAN EMERGENCY
ASSISTANCE RESPONSE
Internationally led Nationally led
LEADERSHIP
Source: O’Brien (forthcoming).
programming. Many interventions are aiming to move in both directions at once (the
diagonal arrow).
2.3 Conflict-centered definition
According to a third vision, humanitarian assistance refers to assistance provided in sit-
uations of armed conflict where international humanitarian law applies. The objective
may be the same as the one described above—to save lives and alleviate suffer-
ing—and the assistance is likely to be funded by the international community, so this
interpretation is a subset of interpretations no. 1 and 2, but more narrowly focused on
conflict. It was in these situations that the humanitarian principles emerged. They pro-
mote the ideals of humanity, impartiality, neutrality and independence as being central
to the delivery of assistance. The confusion between this interpretation and no. 2 above
has led to a misunderstanding in some quarters that the humanitarian principles must
apply in all situations of crisis, and that therefore governments ought not to be respon-
sible for supporting their own populations to save lives in times of natural shocks
because that would not be “independent.” Evidently this is not the case: the role of
states is clearly recognized in law, and most statements of principle start with a reaffir-
9
mation of the primary responsibility of states for the welfare of victims of humanitarian
emergencies within their own borders (O’Brien et al. 2018).
Human(itarian) Capital?
In these contexts, “linking humanitarian assistance to social protection” might entail
considering how, for example, the systems developed by international aid agencies to
support households in a crisis context can provide inspiration for, or be handed over to,
longer-term support for the poor and vulnerable once the crisis is over.
However, blurred definitions and models emerge also beyond conflict situations,
such as in Ethiopia and Kenya. These may include the different ways in which govern-
ment-led needs assessment interface with response planning, e.g., unified response
plan implemented by various actors (Ethiopia), or individual agency-led initiatives (U.K.
Department for International Development [DFID] financing of scaled-up safety net
transfers under the Hunger Safety Net Program in Kenya). It may also include blends of
management of food distributions (different roles of governments, agencies and NGOs
in functions such as monitoring). In Kenya, there are ad hoc emergency food distribu-
tions financed and administered by devolved county governments. Furthermore, recent
cash transfer pilots in Ethiopia financed by ECHO and supported by WFP channel fund-
ing through the government (Sandford 2018; World Bank 2018).
2.4 A framework for case studies
Taken together, the three definitions laid out in previous sections form an organizing
framework for the 12 case studies. The first interpretation, that refers to the objective
of transferring international assistance onto national systems, is reflected in the practi-
cal experiences documented in case such as Liberia, Palestine, and the Philippines. The
purpose-based notion of humanitarian assistance, geared to improving the links between
emergency response and long-term programming, is particularly relevant to Lebanon,
Guinea, Kenya, Mauritania, Zimbabwe, Fiji, and Mozambique. Finally, the third objective
speaks to the provision of social protection in conflict settings, like in Yemen and Syria.
We subsequently plot these observed functions along stylized levels of maturity of
social protection systems (table 1). While the quantification of social protection matu-
rity is a complex and multifaceted analytical question, we simply refer to three broad
buckets drawing from other typologies of national social protection capacities (World
Bank 2018; Gentilini 2016b; OPM 2015). Clearly, the typology is illustrative and there are
multiple dimensions to consider when locating countries in the framework, with some
countries that could potentially fit more than one model. Broad clusters may include
the following:
Countries with limited national social protection systems and large-scale inter-
national humanitarian assistance. These would include Syria and Yemen, which are
amid complex emergencies and conflict. Yemen may be considered a case where
national social protection systems are limited “temporarily,” since they are still lev-
eraged for implementation. Liberia and Guinea are low capacity countries in which
10
a large-scale acute crisis—in this case, the Ebola epidemic—can quickly overwhelm
2 Defining humanitarian assistance
national structures. Mauritania is an interesting example of a country with low levels
of initial capacities, which were enhanced building on crisis response.
Contexts with emerging national social protection systems. Palestine and Lebanon
are facing protracted displacement crises, punctuated by regular political crises and
occasional violent conflicts. Both have relatively high national capacities and strong
donor support. Other case studies refer to governments in relatively stable settings
Table 1 Situating case studies within a stylized framework
Significant national
Limited national social Emerging national social social protection
Interpretation protection systems protection systems systems
Liberia (Ebola response Palestine (largely donor- Philippines (use of social
funding and coordination funded assistance, but protection infrastruc-
1: Transfer of between development delivered based on ture as a vehicle for
international agencies, international common programmatic international emergency
assistance humanitarian actors and framework between response)
onto national government in an acute development agencies,
systems crisis) international humanitar-
ian actors and national
authorities)
Guinea (introduction and Kenya (use of connected Fiji (sequence and use of
effects of a social protec- administrative infrastruc- social protection system
tion program in a crisis ture to inform social as a vehicle for national
context) protection and emer- and international emer-
gency response) gency response)
Mauritania (from
small-scale pilots to pro- Mozambique (poten-
gressive scale up and tial for improving social
institutionalization of protection programs to
2: Improving social protection) enhance disaster risk man-
links between agement and resilience to
emergency shocks)
response and Zimbabwe (improving the
longer-term response to seasonal food
programming insecurity while re-estab-
lishing social protection
systems)
Lebanon (convergence
in elements of program
design and implemen-
tation for the national
population and for
refugees)
Yemen (humanitar-
ian and development
actors leveraging parts
3: Provision of pre-existing social pro-
of services tection institutions and
in conflict practices)
settings
11
Syria (international
humanitarian assistance
as foundation for future
social protection system)
Human(itarian) Capital?
addressing frequent climate-related crises. We look at the interface of social protec-
tion and humanitarian assistance to address seasonal food insecurity and drought
in Zimbabwe and Kenya, and to address rapid-onset shocks in Mozambique. These
countries vary widely in the volume and duration of international humanitarian
assistance that they receive. Palestine, for example, was the world’s fourth largest
recipient of international humanitarian assistance by volume in 2016, at over $1 bil-
lion, while other countries such as Mozambique issue only occasional humanitarian
appeals and on a much smaller scale.
Settings with significant national social protection systems. This includes coun-
tries like the Philippines and Fiji, which represent some of the international cases
that best lend themselves to alignment between international humanitarian assis-
tance and existing national social protection structures.
Overall, case studies were selected based on an initial scoping exercise based on World
Bank and WFP analysis of practical cases of humanitarian–social protection interactions.
The selection should not be considered exhaustive, and a range of countries has since
emerged offering further insights (Madagascar is cited in the paper). Ethiopia has been
subject to extensive documentation and is also referred to on specific occasions. Future
research in a number of other “live” case studies, e.g., Central African Republic, Chad,
Mali, Sudan, Northern Uganda, and the Rohingya response in Bangladesh, would also
be enlightening.
12
PART II
Insights from
practical
experiences
3 Transfer of
international
assistance onto
national systems
3.1 Liberia: strengthening social protection systems for
pandemics and acute crises
Liberia suffered severe socioeconomic impacts from the Ebola crisis, including around
food access and availability among affected populations. The World Bank’s regional
Ebola Emergency Response Project (EERP), with some $167 million eventually allocated
to Liberia, aimed to contribute to controlling the outbreak, making health services avail-
able and mitigating the socioeconomic impact. WFP’s operational experience and reach
in Liberia—and the fact that WFP’s Emergency Operation objectives overlapped with
those of the Bank—made it a sensible Bank partner under two of the project’s five com-
ponents, by which WFP delivered food assistance to meet the caloric and micronutrient
requirements of affected households.1 Six key findings arise from the Liberia case study.
Funding arrangements. Usually the World Bank aims to transfer funds through sov-
ereign governments to manage project implementation where possible. Under the
EERP, the World Bank transferred WFP’s first tranche directly to WFP with the
authorization of government, but without going via government systems. This was
agreed because of the need for a speedy response and because government capac-
ity was stretched to its limits. For the second tranche the Bank reverted to its
traditional modality, moving funds through the government to WFP. Delays in the
amendment of the agreement meant that WFP had to prefinance the whole second
tranche. It is expected that, as government systems become stronger, the neces-
sity of channeling funds directly to international agencies will be reduced. However,
1
Under the arrangement, the Government authorized WFP to receive part of the EERP funds,
delivered in two tranches. The first tranche of $5.6 million was spent on the purchase of food
commodities. The second, for $2.4 million, had been intended for the purchase of food; but the
14
crisis context was changing rapidly and it was decided to enable households to pay for labor so
they could invest in the planting season and stimulate recovery of local markets, meeting food
security needs through locally produced food. The grant agreement was revised to allow for the
distribution of a cash transfer.
3 Transfer of international assistance onto national systems
in the absence of alternative national systems, in some emergency contexts direct
transfers of funds to international agencies may be appropriate.
Flexibility in grant agreements also played an important role. The original terms of
the second tranche agreement referred only to the delivery of food, not cash. The
need to amend project documents and financial agreements, once it was decided
that cash was preferable, took time and resources. Greater flexibility in grant agree-
ments for emergency contexts, compared with those that are used in regular
development programs in stable conditions, may prove valuable for reducing delays.
Timeliness. The channeling of funds to WFP, an organization that has standard pro-
cedures to enable rapid emergency response, was beneficial in that funds were
quickly mobilized for use.
Procedures of humanitarian operations by external agencies may not necessarily
be aligned with national systems of reporting, procurement, etc. This could inhibit
the process of connecting to national social protection systems as they develop or
resume in functionality. The Liberia case calls for more standardized and planned
ways to devise bilateral or tripartite arrangements, a process that since has gathered
steam and has been rolled out by the World Bank and UN agencies.
Leadership also mattered. The collaboration on the Ebola response was steered by
the commitment of individuals in the Government of Liberia, World Bank and WFP.
It could be valuable to take time now, in a noncrisis situation, to elaborate an opera-
tional framework to guide triggers for future collaboration, so that opportunities are
less dependent on the decisions made by individuals.
There are opportunities for knowledge transfer between agencies and government.
As the acute emergency transitioned to more sustained development support for
survivors or affected populations, there were opportunities to increase knowledge
sharing and the transfer of experiences. For example, WFP undertook many vulnera-
bility assessments in counties supported by the government’s cash transfer program
and household-level information collected might be relevant for both types of inter-
ventions. Drawing on this experience, discussions are already underway to link the
development of a national social registry of vulnerable households with data gath-
ered by WFP for its proprietary beneficiary registration system.
3.2 Palestine: a common programmatic framework for
social protection and humanitarian response
The cornerstone of the national social protection system in Palestine is the Cash
Transfer Program (CTP). This embodies how collaboration among national governments,
15
development partners and international aid agencies can result not only in streamlined
delivery systems for all partners, but also in greater trust and strengthened national
Human(itarian) Capital?
ownership of the provision of social assistance. It also reveals the trade-offs and some
of the challenges to be addressed. The positive story of the national ownership is par-
ticularly notable given the CTP’s uncertain fiscal sustainability and reliance on donor
funding. The European Union (EU) and the World Bank finance nearly 50 percent of its
cost, while the remainder is financed by the Palestinian Authority. However, the latter
also receives substantial budget support, part of which covers the CTP.
The CTP was launched at the time of the formulation of Palestine’s Social Protection
Sector Strategy in 2010, under the leadership of the Ministry of Social Development
with World Bank assistance. It was the successor to two earlier cash transfer pro-
grams, the EU-funded Social Hardship Case and the World Bank–funded Social Safety
Net Reform Project. The CTP merged the two in terms of program management and
implementation, and uniform payments; it also built on the capacity-building activi-
ties, targeting mechanism and a management information system (MIS) from the earlier
interventions. Under the CTP the targeting mechanism and MIS were upgraded: the tar-
geting instrument was shifted to poverty-based criteria (proxy means testing) and the
MIS was developed to encompass a targeting database, an accounting system, payment
lists, and a module for reporting.
Around the same time, in 2009, WFP had introduced a voucher program for food assis-
tance as a life-saving measure to respond to high food prices (Galluzzi and Natsheh
2010). This was intended to improve food security as well as to have positive second-
ary impacts on the local economy by restricting some of the foods redeemable on
the voucher to those produced locally. WFP then made significant efforts to build the
capacity of the Ministry of Social Development to introduce the voucher scheme as a
complement to the CTP, to enhance the effectiveness of the CTP and to support the
ministry to manage the use of vouchers as an emergency response.
The close partnership with the ministry has successfully built a sense of ownership by
the Palestinian Authority over the assistance mechanisms, with the trade-off accepted as
being a slower rate of expansion than if WFP had implemented the modality on its own.
As of July 2018, the voucher reaches over 75,000 CTP beneficiaries, supplementing the
CTP. Meanwhile, the electronic system that is used to manage the financial transactions
under the voucher modality was designed to be easily adaptable for other crises. Indeed,
it was made possible for other organizations to deliver assistance through the same card,
including assistance from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UNICEF, and
HelpAge for providing WASH items and school uniforms (Gentilini 2015).
In all these arrangements we find numerous mutually beneficial synergies between
development interventions and those for crisis response. Figure 3 highlights some of the
links between the CTP, the food voucher program, other interventions and the sector
more broadly. For example, both the World Bank and WFP worked with Palestinian
authorities through a common registry system (the poverty-targeting database); they
16
also share a targeting framework and include some of the same beneficiaries. Some ele-
ments of program design, such as support to national capacity building, are intended to
3 Transfer of international assistance onto national systems
Figure 3 Links between humanitarian assistance and social protection
in Palestine
CTP poverty-targeting database used by other agencies to provide complementary
assistance or avoid duplication
CTP targeting formula (PMT) used
CASH by WFP for non-CTP interventions
OTHER
TRANSFER FOOD
DIRECT LINKS
Food consumption questions Card with EMERGENCY
PROGRAMS
BETWEEN
PROGRAM added to PMT formula VOUCHER e-wallet made RESPONSES
Implemented Implemented by available to other
Some CTP beneficiaries Including by
by MoSD with MoSD with WFP agencies
enrolled in voucher scheme UNRWA, UNICEF,
World Bank assistance
HelpAge, etc.
assistance Voucher scheme partly
integrated into CTP
OUTCOMES/SYSTEM
STRENGTHENING
INDIRECT LINKS
Support to ministry strengthens Voucher restricted to
TO IMPROVED
national capacity for analysis and purchase of locally
decision making on food security, and produced food where
management of social assistance possible, to improve
livelihoods of producers
Contribution of food voucher
Contribution of CTP
Note: The upper half of the diagram shows the links that have been developed between spe-
cific programs—the CTP, the food voucher program and other responses to crises. The lower
half shows some of the links between those programs and the broader social protection system,
including activities that reduce vulnerability or promote general capacity building in social
protection.
have longer term positive impacts on the social protection sector as a whole. Meanwhile
some potential areas for closer integration remain underexplored: for instance, at the
time of the study, while international humanitarian agencies could request the MoSD to
cross-check the names of their beneficiaries against the CTP’s beneficiary list, they could
not feed information that they have collected back into the CTP system. More recently,
there have been efforts to address this issue.
The experience of the CTP also offers lessons for understanding the potential con-
sequences of forging links between programs that may have different objectives or
trajectories. For example, reliance on a single targeting tool may render the CTP and
other programs less effective in addressing vulnerability emerging from factors not
incorporated in the proxy means test formula. Hence it will be important to supplement
those programs with mechanisms to protect these groups before they become further
excluded.
Overall, there are strong indications that the two types of interventions—govern-
ment-led social protection schemes and the emergency-style responses of international
aid agencies—can learn from one another’s experiences, and even to develop common
practices or systems where their objectives share similarities. The likelihood of this
occurring and having a positive impact depends not only on the relevance of their
respective programs to one another, but also on issues ranging from political econ-
17
omy—such as international actors holding on to their space, or the preference of some
donors to work through international agencies rather than the government—to the sus-
tainability of funding for national systems and the capacity of state actors.
Human(itarian) Capital?
3.3 Philippines: channeling donor response to natural
disasters via national structures
The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) in the Philippines man-
ages a flagship conditional cash transfer program, the Pantawid Pamilya Pilipino
Program (4Ps) reaching about 4.5 million households. After Typhoon Haiyan in
November 2013, both WFP and UNICEF funded top-up payments to some beneficia-
ries of the 4Ps to help meet their immediate needs and facilitate recovery. The intention
was to work through government systems to provide postdisaster response to reduce
the reliance on contracting NGOs to work in parallel. WFP funded top-ups of P2,600
(about $58) to nearly 100,000 beneficiary households, delivered in two tranches in
January and February 2014. UNICEF, in agreement with the DSWD, later funded extra
cash support to some 5,800 households in the worst affected province. Each received
P4,400 (about $100) a month for six months, from July to September 2014, and
January to March 2015.
The DSWD’s delivery systems and resources were central to the response. Its staff
managed the delivery of this assistance, in part by working overtime. WFP and UNICEF
channeled their funds through the same payment mechanisms as the 4Ps—after having
conducted due diligence on their ability to deliver the additional support—making use
of DSWD’s partnership with the Land Bank of the Philippines and its network of sub-
contracted payment service providers such as rural banks and post offices. Monitoring
and evaluation of the assistance, however, remained independent.
A primary observation must be, of course, that these top-ups were, by definition, con-
fined to households already enrolled on the 4Ps, i.e., poor households with children.
Use of the 4Ps infrastructure meant that they were familiar with the delivery pro-
cess. Other households living in the same area who were not on the program had to be
reached through separate interventions.
For the funders—WFP and UNICEF—the arrangement was cost-efficient as they
assessed it to be cheaper for the agencies themselves, per dollar transferred, to use
the DSWD’s delivery channels in comparison to setting up agreements with NGOs to
deliver the cash. The comparison is possible because both agencies also contracted
NGOs to provide assistance to households not enrolled on the 4Ps. WFP, in its agree-
ment with the DSWD, covered the government’s additional implementation costs,
though constraints in procurement and hiring meant that the DSWD was unable to avail
itself of these funds at the time they were required.
The establishment of the memorandums of understanding was made easier by the fact
that WFP was already a partner of the ministry. 2 UNICEF, too, had long been a partner.
Now that the memorandums of understanding exist, they can be quickly modified and
18 2
WFP was a member of an advisory committee supporting the DSWD and they had collabo-
rated on delivering relief in disaster and conflict areas even before typhoon Haiyan.
3 Transfer of international assistance onto national systems
adopted in the event of future emergencies (as has been done already, in the response
to Typhoon Ruby in 2014).
The burden was heavy for the DSWD’s own staff, who already had the task of revali-
dating lists of 4Ps beneficiaries in affected areas and issuing temporary identification
cards for those who had lost them. They then had to oversee the arrangements for the
extra payment, that is, one of WFP’s two top-ups was paid at a separate time to the reg-
ular schedule of payments for 4Ps beneficiaries. The disruption of the UNICEF-funded
payments between October and December 2014 was ascribed to the overburdening of
DSWD staff who were responsible for the financial management of the 4Ps while han-
dling other projects.
Some payment service providers witnessed their system being affected by the typhoon.
Allowing beneficiaries the flexibility to obtain cash from a provider other than the one
they normally used was a welcome feature in this context. Desirable options for further
flexibility were also identified, such as changes in the ceiling of the maximum transfer in a
day which was governed by the DSWD’s agreement with the Land Bank of the Philippines.
The case study and other reviews of the response to Typhoon Haiyan conclude that it is
relevant to continue to explore ways to link social protection interventions with disas-
ter response, especially as the DSWD is the lead agency for both. This might include,
for instance, identifying triggers to mobilize the use of social protection programs in
an emergency. It will be opportune to build on previous experiences while supporting
improvements to the practicalities of scaling up program operations in crisis contexts.
3.4 Takeaways from transferring international
assistance onto national systems
In countries that are still at a very early stage in developing their national capac-
ity in social protection, such as Liberia, the opportunities for the meaningful use of
national social protection programs and systems in response to a major acute crisis
on a national scale, such as the Ebola viral disease, may be limited. In the case of
Liberia, indeed, the alternative entailed experimenting with bilateral World Bank–UN
or trilateral World Bank–government–UN contracting arrangements. Ongoing work
by the World Bank and UN partners is geared to further codify, adapt and institu-
tionalize procedures between parties.
In contexts where assistance might be heavily donor funded, such as in Palestine, a
shared programmatic framework adopted by different actors can help foster national
ownership and coherent delivery of social protection and humanitarian assistance.
When using government systems, humanitarian assistance can help reduce fragmen-
19
tation. However, the Philippines shows that, especially at the height of the crisis, there
are also managerial costs for the government associated with such support. Moreover,
there can be extensive needs among populations not served by social protection.
4 Improving links
between emergency
response and longer-
term programming
4.1 Guinea: school feeding programs in a crisis context
In Guinea, the government has gradually been expanding its provision of social protec-
tion beyond contributory social insurance for formal sector employees. Since 2011, the
World Bank has been providing support to lay the foundations of a social safety net
strategy, through support to both policy development and the implementation of pilot
programs. The process for elaborating a national social protection policy was launched
in 2014, and the policy document was submitted for the approval of the head of gov-
ernment in December 2016. A key component of the World Bank’s support had been
a $25 million grant for a Productive Social Safety Net Project (PSSNP). Effective in
February 2013, it comprised a public works program, a pilot cash transfer, and an institu-
tional capacity-building component. In late 2013, a supervision mission recommended a
revision of the cash transfer component to strengthen education and health outcomes.
Hence, a redesign was already underway when the Ebola crisis broke out in March 2014.
The restructuring was completed in November 2014, resulting in the introduction of a
school feeding subcomponent, to be delivered by WFP. A separate component was cre-
ated to assist UNICEF’s logistical support and other services to respond to the epidemic.
The WFP-implemented school feeding project was both affected by, and had an impact
on, the Ebola crisis. Its implementation was delayed while schools were closed; how-
ever, once they reopened it reached a greater number of schools than planned (54
instead of 40) but for a shorter time period (13 months rather than 18). The schools
funded by the World Bank’s pilot focused on remote and poorly serviced areas. Their
number was small compared with WFP’s regular national school feeding assistance pro-
gram which reached about 1,600 schools in 2015–16.
The case study highlights several positive features—either noted by the community
or drawn from WFP’s monitoring reports—relating to the fact that the school feed-
20
ing program was functioning most of the time during the Ebola crisis. First, it was
reported to have an impact on households’ overall food security, which was particularly
4 Improving links between emergency response and longer-term programming
important in Ebola-affected areas where food security was severely affected. Second,
it alleviated the economic burden of Ebola orphans on their hosting families. Third, the
provision of support to all students (not just those affected by Ebola) contributed to
rebuilding communities’ trust in the authorities.
The case study affirms the pragmatism of the approach taken by the World Bank, WFP
and the Government of Guinea in adjusting the design of the PSSNP. Also, it docu-
mented that school feeding programs could serve as a critical safety net even in areas
that are highly resource constrained and face challenging conditions of accessibility.
Coordination and communication could be further improved through a memorandum of
understanding between interested parties, and improved data collection and reporting,
to ensure that lessons learned are better integrated into future improvements to the
national school feeding program.
4.2 Mauritania: crisis response as a catalyst for building
social protection
In Mauritania, domestic programs have a long tradition of providing food subsidies
(e.g., Emel shops). However, in times of crises these programs faced severe challenges
in reaching parts of the country with low population densities. International humanitar-
ian assistance has been provided on a more targeted and seasonal basis to complement
existing national measures. These measures have started to gradually influence and
build a social protection system. Some milestone of this process since 2011 are illus-
trated in figure 4.
In 2011, the EU delegation funded a program of four experiences of “cash based social
safety nets,” implemented by Action Contre la Faim, Gret, the French Red Cross and
WFP. The WFP pilot program was eventually implemented in nine regions, covering
Nouakchott and the southern rural areas. The Ministry of Economy and Finance asked
WFP and the governmental Commissariat à la Sécurité Alimentaire (CSA) to establish a
register of vulnerable households in Nouakchott and develop a targeting strategy.
These early cash-based experiences were followed by a “post-2012 crisis” program,
implemented at larger scale by the same actors. UNICEF, the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and WFP devised a joint approach that, while
increasingly adopting cash as a core transfer modality, also included a harmonizing
Figure 4 Humanitarian–social protection milestones in Mauritania
2011 2012 2013 2014 2016
Cash transfers by Scale-up and International Government adopts Expansion of
ACF, Gret, French harmonization of Monetary Fund national social registry to other
Red Cross, WFP approaches by recommendation protection strategy
21
programs
WFP Nouakchott UNICEF, FAO, of national registry Introduction of
registry and and WFP based on Nouakchott national cash transfer
targeting experience program supported
by World Bank
Human(itarian) Capital?
of targeting approaches. These revolved around the Household Economy Analysis
framework, which was adopted in the Sahel in the mid-2000s. The documentation of
experiences, particularly those implemented by NGOs, generated technical exchanges
about transfer frequency, amount, payments, conditionality, and complementary mea-
sures. A “cash group” was launched, originally led by WFP and affiliated with the Cash
Learning Partnership (CaLP). The group benefited from financial support from the EU.
In 2012, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) alerted the Government of Mauritania to
rising public expenditures on untargeted transfers while national revenues were declin-
ing. In 2013, it recommended to adopt a strategic framework for social protection as
well as the development of a targeting strategy based on the WFP-CSA experience
in Nouakchott. The following year, Mauritania adopted the National Social Protection
Strategy (SNPS), with its governing body including UNICEF, WFP and other mem-
bers; also, the government requested the World Bank to support the development of a
National Social Registry (NSR) as well as a cash transfer program (Tekavoul) targeting
100,000 poor household across the country.
International humanitarian actors, and in particular those in the “cash group,” pro-
gressively moved from technical coordination among themselves to more actively
prioritizing engagement with social protection. The Ministry of Economy and Finance
joined the cash group in September 2015, which renamed itself “cash and social pro-
tection working group.” This adopted an advocacy strategy to institutionalize dialogue
between its members, the government institutions and donor agencies around cash
transfers and social protection issues. Although the institutional integration of this
group is limited and only focused on cash transfers, its overall trajectory demonstrates
members’ willingness to engage in technical dialogue around the NSR and SNPS.
In 2016, at the initiative of the World Bank and WFP, a group of international stakehold-
ers (including UNICEF, FAO, ECHO and NGOs) initiated strategic discussions on how to
strengthen the crisis prevention and management systems, including early warning sys-
tems and contingency planning. This is an important development connected to the
launch of the registry. Household registration began in 2016 and was not limited to
Tekavoul: other programs could identify their beneficiaries using their own filter. WFP
plans to test its use for targeting seasonal transfers and asset-building activities, and
potentially as an instrument for rapid targeting in a crisis.
4.3 Kenya: integrated information management for social
protection and drought response
The consolidation and harmonization of social protection schemes in Kenya has been
underway for a number of years. The creation of the Social Protection Secretariat in
2010, the elaboration of the Kenya National Social Protection Policy in 2011, and the
22
establishment of the National Safety Net Program in 2013 form some cornerstones of
this approach. These are guiding the development of a common operational framework
4 Improving links between emergency response and longer-term programming
for many government-led programs, four of which already existed: the Cash Transfer
for Orphans and Vulnerable Children, the People with Severe Disabilities Cash Transfer,
the Older Persons Cash Transfer and the Hunger Safety Net Program.1 The framework
aims to streamline methods and systems for functions common to all these programs,
namely targeting, registration, payment, and the handling of updates, complaints and
queries.
A key component of the consolidation process has been the launch of a computer-
ized MIS, the Single Registry, in 2016. While each program is responsible for collecting
and maintaining data on its own beneficiaries and activities in its own MIS, essential
data from each program MIS is conveyed to the common platform, the Single Registry,
where it can be analyzed and reports generated. 2 It also links to the national identity
system, the Integrated Population Registration Services. The Single Registry enables,
for example, analysis of the number of beneficiaries of different programs by area, or
the identification of households receiving multiple benefits. In this way it is intended to
improve the delivery of social protection programs themselves.
Of particular interest to this paper is the fact that the database is also designed to facil-
itate the provision of support to households at times of crisis (for whom a strengthened
social protection system is already valuable). It does this in two ways: first, other imple-
menters—including those providing emergency response—can set up their own MISs in
a way that also links to the Single Registry; and second, it permits analysis of coverage
of existing programs which may help determine if they can be used for crisis response.
WFP became the first nongovernment provider to link up with the Single Registry,
feeding in information about the beneficiaries of its programs that support resilient
livelihoods.
The vision was tested in the response to the drought that was declared a national disas-
ter in February 2017 following two seasons of poor rainfall in 2016. Government and
donors sought to use the Single Registry to determine the coverage of social assistance
in affected regions and to project additional coverage for the response. Looking to the
future, plans are in place to improve the functionality of the Single Registry in crisis con-
texts through a number of measures. These include, among others, updating the field
that captures the location of households to reflect the new county structure; linking to
other programs delivered by humanitarian actors, as well as to other major government
programs that have a social protection element, such as the National Health Insurance
Fund; and embarking on the decentralization of the registry to county level, since
county governments can also implement their own programs.
23
1
Kenya has also recently introduced an old-age social pension for people aged 70 and above.
2
Kenya’s Single Registry can therefore be classified as an “integrated beneficiary registry” (see
e.g., Barca, 2017, for a classification of types of social protection database).
Human(itarian) Capital?
4.4 Mozambique: enhancing connections between
emergency response and social protection
Mozambique’s national disaster risk management system, led by an agency known as
the National Institute of Disaster Management (INGC), has been consistently strength-
ened over the last decade in terms of its policy development, contingency planning,
institutional capacity and coordination function. The UN activates a Humanitarian
Country Team when required in the event of crises that exceed the government’s capac-
ity to respond. These systems have mainly been directed at rapid-onset shocks such as
cyclones and floods; the 2015–16 drought has shifted some of this focus.
Several recent studies have explored if and how social protection—led by the Ministry
of Gender, Children and Social Action and its implementing arm, the National Institute
of Social Action (INAS)—might contribute to the preparedness and response to natural
hazards. An updated National Strategy for Basic Social Security, ENSSB II, was approved
in 2016 and offers an overarching framework for those connections.
The four main social protection programs are a cash transfer program (PSSB), labor-in-
tensive public works (PASP), social care services (PSSAS), and assistance for vulnerable
families (PASD). The social protection sector is significantly constrained at finan-
cial and operational level even to deliver its current commitments to these programs.
Opportunities are therefore limited to contribute strongly to disaster risk management
and humanitarian action in the short term.
More recently, Mozambique has been designing a program called “PASD-PE” (“PASD
post-emergency”)—a social protection direct support program for post-emergen-
cies. Supported by an additional finance investment program by the World Bank, the
PASD-PE is designed as an unconditional cash transfer to allow a smooth transition
from the humanitarian response. Beneficiaries of PASD-PE will be derived from the list
of households that are beneficiaries of the emergency support provided by the INGC.
Following a temporary support for 12 months, the intention is that PASD-PE benefi-
ciaries are to be referred to a social pension program, labor intensive public works, or
other interventions. PASD-PE is currently implemented in three districts in Southern
Mozambique, supporting 18.500 households. 3
As the government has not been wholly in favor of using cash transfers as a modality
for humanitarian assistance, Mozambique does not have this natural point of conver-
gence between emergency and long-term cash transfers that is becoming a feature
for links between emergency response and social protection elsewhere. However,
efforts are being made to strengthen the social protection sector in its own right, and
close linkages have been documented in other programs. For instance, under PASP the
World Bank and WFP have collaborated with INAS on defining the eligibility criteria
24 3
Murragarra (2018), personal communication.
4 Improving links between emergency response and longer-term programming
for potential beneficiaries, resulting in the PASP adopting a proxy means test combined
with food consumption scores. The experience of humanitarian agencies in implement-
ing lean-season and emergency public works led the World Bank to adopt WFP quality
and monitoring protocols on asset creation programs; at the same time, WFP adopted
the national public works manual, which was developed with Bank support.
At a national dialogue on shock-responsive social protection in June 2018, jointly facil-
itated by WFP and the World Bank, the government and its partners agreed on the
need for follow-up action in six areas:
Preparation of collaboration protocols between INGC and INAS to clarify role and
responsibilities (a joint activity with WFP).
Identification and prioritization of beneficiaries, including through geographic risk
analysis and vulnerability assessments. District-level vulnerability to climate shocks
may be a relevant criterion to consider for the geographical expansion of social pro-
tection interventions which do not yet have national coverage. Drought-affected
areas may be particularly relevant for greater coverage by routine social protection,
not only because INGC operations have until recently focused more on rapid-onset
disasters, but also because drought tends to occur in similar geographical areas and
builds up over a number of months.
Clarification of any triggers for activation of a social protection program in an
emergency.
Strengthening the collaboration between INAS and INGC at all levels of planning
especially at district level. This could include the integration of social protection into
district-level resilience plans, especially in relation to climate-sensitive assets that
could be created under PASP. The government, with WFP support, has been field
testing links between the creation of Local Adaptation Plans and community-level
approaches for analyzing resilience.
Establishing integrated databases between INGC and INAS. The limited availability
of high-quality data from the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Action/INAS
on vulnerable populations is a major constraint on its ability to add value to plan-
ning for disaster risk management. INAS is still developing its MIS; once operational
this should significantly improve its capacity.
Affirming the leadership of the government in this process.
4.5 Zimbabwe: improving the response to seasonal food
insecurity and re-establishing effective social protection
Zimbabwe is a low-income country that, like Mauritania, has high rates of food inse-
curity and malnutrition. Social, economic and institutional fragility have undermined 25
Human(itarian) Capital?
development in general and social protection capabilities at national and local levels.
Weather-related shocks impede economic recovery, and food production is reported
to be increasingly stressed by climate change. These, together with stretched state
capacity, have resulted in greater visibility of nonstate programming. Yet Zimbabwe
previously had one of the first and most sophisticated social protection systems in
the region. In this context, the case study of WFP’s experience highlights options for
enhancing responses to annual food insecurity in a way that may contribute to the
re-establishment of longer term national social protection planning. This is consistent
with the 2016 National Social Protection Policy Framework, which makes it clear that
social assistance is core to reducing vulnerability to shocks. The prevalence of poverty,
especially in rural areas, necessarily requires almost simultaneous delivery of short- and
medium-to-long-term interventions.
International agency interventions at the interface of emergency response and long-
term social protection included various experiences. A major one is data collection,
analysis and dissemination on vulnerability, food security and nutrition. WFP has led
the use of three analytical tools that collect data relevant for both crisis response and
social protection planning: (i) the Integrated Context Analysis tool generates an over-
view of geographical areas prone to different hazards, as well as trends in food and
nutrition insecurity. (ii) At subnational level, District Risk Profiles are developed on the
basis of 10-year trend analyses to understand underlying causes of chronic poverty
and vulnerability to shocks. A key feature is the Seasonal Livelihood Programming cal-
endar, which aims to guide e.g., the location and timing of planned interventions. (iii)
Community-based Participatory Planning is used to develop action plans in which com-
munities identify their priorities for building resilience.
Based on these experiences, WFP—alongside other UN agencies—has influenced the
analytical frameworks and indicators used by the Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment
Committee for its annual assessments. At the time of the study it was suggested that
there might be an opportunity for WFP and the World Bank to collaborate on enhanc-
ing the capacity of local structures for local data gathering, analysis and use for
decision making.
Agencies have also been supporting the design and implementation of safety nets
built around food insecurity. Working with the state and other relevant agencies, WFP
deliver Lean Season Assistance to households during the peak hunger season (January
to March), and implements productive asset creation activities outside that season (May
to November). The Lean Season Assistance, which increasingly uses a mix of in-kind food
and cash to stabilize consumption, shares many features with a typical long-term social
protection program. For instance, beneficiaries are issued with smartcards which they
can use to spend benefits at local shops. The productive asset creation activities focus
on “food assistance for assets”: they aim to provide participants with immediate support
to access food, while creating assets such as small irrigation schemes or dip tanks for
26
livestock that are intended to mitigate the consequences of future shocks. Some asset
4 Improving links between emergency response and longer-term programming
creation schemes are also linked to the provision of agricultural insurance for small-
holder farmers to compensate for weather-related losses.
4.6 Fiji: sequence of government and donor responses to
natural disasters
In February 2016, Fiji was struck by Cyclone Winston, the most intense storm ever
registered in the southern hemisphere. Some 540,000 people (62 percent of the pop-
ulation) were affected. The National Disaster Management Office led the response,
activating all government-led sectoral clusters. Its actions injected about $160 million
into the economy through existing programs spanning employment, protection, food
security and shelter. In addition, the country received about $33 million in international
humanitarian assistance, part of which was also channeled through social protection
schemes.
The structures and arrangements for disaster risk management in Fiji, led by the
National Disaster Management Office, are comprehensive and have undergone recent
revision. They outline the roles and responsibilities of all government agencies, and
require all agencies to incorporate disaster risk management practices into their plans
and budgets. So, while many aspects of crisis response are unrelated to social protec-
tion, and are thus dealt with by other ministries, it was nonetheless important for the
Department of Social Welfare to determine how best to contribute to the relief and
recovery effort. One of the most mature systems in the Pacific region, the Fiji social pro-
tection system was able to be leveraged in four ways.
First, the government provided cash transfer top-ups. In March, the government
funded additional cash to all beneficiaries of its three main social assistance pro-
grams—the Poverty Benefits Scheme, the Care and Protection Allowance, and the
Social Pension Scheme—reaching almost 44,000 households.4 The transfer con-
sisted of a lump sum of F$600 to each beneficiary of the Poverty Benefits Scheme,
and F$300 to beneficiaries of the other two, equating to roughly three months
of their usual monthly transfer value. This was intended to contribute to meeting
households’ needs for February to April.
Second, WFP’s response provided a further top-up. In May and June, at the gov-
ernment’s request WFP provided further top-ups to some beneficiaries of these
schemes, targeted to the most severely affected locations. It paid between
F$50–150 per month per household, depending on the scheme. WFP used the
4
All three are cash transfer programs. The Poverty Benefits Scheme supports the poorest
27
10 percent of households in Fiji, identified through a proxy means test. The Care and Protection
Allowance is targeted at vulnerable households with children. The Social Pension Scheme sup-
ports people aged 66 and over. Some beneficiaries of these schemes are also eligible for a
supplementary Food Voucher Program.
Human(itarian) Capital?
government’s delivery mechanisms where possible. Modalities included e-vouchers
in places with supermarkets and for people familiar with an existing Food Voucher
Program. Paper vouchers were provided to pensioners not previously using e-vouch-
ers, while cash transfers were distributed where vouchers could not be redeemed.
Third, withdrawal of pension funds was made possible. Members of the Fiji National
Provident Fund—the contributory social insurance scheme, mostly for formal sector
workers—were authorized to make a one-off withdrawal of F$1,000 from their
pension funds, and a further F$5,000 if their house was in a cyclone-affected area.
Some 170,000 withdrawals were approved. This option provided by far the largest
injection of cash into the economy, releasing about F$250 million, or 3 percent of
gross domestic product (GDP).
Finally, Help for Homes was introduced as a new cash transfer program for house-
holds below a certain income threshold for home repairs.
It should be noted that, in the first month after the disaster, nearly all cyclone-affected
households received some in-kind emergency relief in the form of food or building
materials. The subsequent use of the social protection schemes was intended to com-
plement, not replace, this established system for crisis response. Other small-scale cash
or in-kind distribution programs were also delivered by NGOs.
Program evaluations and reviews have identified some key enabling factors and con-
straints arising from this use of the government’s social protection system after the
cyclone. A primary advantage was that the national schemes were well established,
with robust delivery systems. The cyclone struck the poorest part of Fiji where many
people were already enrolled onto the poverty-targeted scheme, so it seemed logical to
reach them using the same channel. A major limitation, however, was that nonprogram
beneficiaries did not receive cash from the government or WFP. The Poverty Benefit
Scheme had collected some data on “near-poor” families, but they were not updated
electronically; meanwhile, those who were newly poor because of the cyclone may not
have been on a list. While top-ups may have had positive impact on beneficiaries, non-
beneficiaries were subsequently found to lag behind in their recovery.
Agencies were advised to plan alternatives to reach nonprogram beneficiaries in future
crises. Upgrading the Poverty Benefit Scheme database might be one means of more
quickly tracing these excluded households. Improving data collection and mapping of
vulnerabilities might also be valuable. Indeed, there was some inclusion of non-affected
households in the government’s top-up as it did not geographically target its assistance.
It was difficult to distinguish the affected areas in its database, and the need for assis-
tance was too urgent to resolve this. Officials expected some redistribution among
households, though this assumption was not necessarily found in practice.
28
The response generated lessons for policy and planning, including a recommendation
to develop guidelines on the use of social protection under different disaster scenar-
ios. It was also agreed to create a National Humanitarian Policy to guide the use of early
4 Improving links between emergency response and longer-term programming
warning systems and contingency planning, and to better specify the role of interna-
tional humanitarian agencies in crisis response.
With the withdrawal of pension funds, households received short-term relief, although
will also face reduced pensions in the future. Also, they may not be able to access
further funds in future emergencies if they have already reached their maximum with-
drawal limit.
4.7 Lebanon: supporting refugees alongside the national
population
Faced with an influx of 1.5 million Syrians, Lebanon and its partners have developed
their support to the growing numbers of Lebanese pushed into poverty as a result of
the crisis, at the same time that international agencies in the country have been address-
ing needs among the refugees themselves. The introduction by external actors (United
Nations Refugee Agency [UNHCR], WFP) of a comprehensive transfer system for Syrian
refugees and, to a lesser extent, for Lebanese families affected by the crisis, offers an
opportunity for reforming and updating longer-term national social protection systems.
Some convergence between delivery system for refugee assistance and Lebanon’s exist-
ing social protection programs has already taken place.
Lebanon’s National Poverty Targeting Program (NPTP), supported by the World Bank,
was launched in October 2011 to provide fee waivers for health and education targeted
at the poorest and most vulnerable Lebanese households—coverage that continues
today for 105,000 households.
In May 2012, the Government of Lebanon requested WFP to return to Lebanon to
address the food and nutrition needs of the growing population of Syrian refugees
in the country. WFP began delivering food assistance to Syrian refugees in June 2012
using paper vouchers. WFP scaled up and expanded its assistance program in 2013, and
shifted its transfer modality from the paper voucher to an electronic card providing
assistance. Functioning markets, technical capacity, adequate banking services and infra-
structure throughout the country allowed for this change. By December 2013, more
than 500,000 refugees had received an electronic food voucher redeemable in local
shops throughout the country, contributing to developing value chains and having a
positive impact on the Lebanese economy. In 2017, the number of assisted beneficiaries
reached 680,000 following a series of validation and targeting exercises.
The Banque Libano Française is the financial service provider of the prepaid card system
used for registered Syrian refugees. The system enables targeted beneficiaries to pur-
chase food commodities at WFP-contracted shops only. As of today, over 480 retailers
throughout Lebanon contracted by WFP have a devoted point-of-sale device to process
29
beneficiaries’ e-cards. For the successful roll-out of this innovative approach, WFP relied
on the guidance and support of the Lebanese Central Bank. To receive assistance from
Human(itarian) Capital?
WFP, Syrian refugees must be registered with UNHCR. WFP provides e-cards to tar-
geted refugees in Lebanon based upon their refugee status and eligibility for assistance,
as determined by the Vulnerability Assessment of Syrian Refugees in Lebanon (a multi-
sector analysis that WFP conducts annually with UNHCR and UNICEF).
By early 2014, at the height of the influx of refugees into Lebanon, and with the WFP
e-card food voucher program in full swing throughout the country for refugees, there
was increasing evidence of growing tensions among poor Lebanese families and ref-
ugees residing within the same communities. This was primarily due to the fact that
Lebanese families were ineligible to receive WFP e-card assistance. These growing ten-
sions were further identified by regular field visits conducted by the World Bank team,
the Ministry of Social Affairs’ (MOSA’s) social workers, as well as WFP.
In response, and to help mitigate the impact of the refugee influx on Lebanon (the
main recommendation of the Lebanon economic and social impact assessment), the
World Bank proposed to the government the introduction of the e-card food vouch-
ers for poor Lebanese families, and approached WFP. Both the World Bank and WFP
saw the importance of this step not only in terms of a means of reducing poverty and
tension among the two communities, but also to strengthen the national system (the
NPTP). If successful, the international community would have contributed to developing
Lebanon’s social safety net system.
In November 2014, the NPTP was scaled up through the Emergency NPTP project
(E-NPTP) with the support of an $8.2 million grant from the Lebanon Syrian Crisis Trust
Fund. A second phase of support was provided through a $10 million grant in 2016
(Additional Financing to the E-NPTP—World Bank). By introducing food assistance
via the e-card food voucher to NPTP beneficiaries, the scale ups aimed to help allevi-
ate extreme poverty experienced by vulnerable Lebanese and reduce tension between
Lebanese host communities and Syrian refugees by providing a level of assistance parity
received by refugees.
NPTP also included financing operational support, training and capacity development
assistance for MOSA from WFP to assume the overall responsibility for the imple-
mentation of the food voucher program within the following areas: (i) beneficiary
sensitization on the use, maintenance and operation of the e-card; (ii) distribution of
e-cards to beneficiaries; (iii) assessment, monitoring (pre-assessment baseline, postdistri-
bution monitoring and sampling) and reporting tools; (iv) beneficiary data management;
and (iv) fraud detection techniques.
Based on funding availability, the most vulnerable 5,076 households from the NPTP
beneficiary database (27,209 individuals) were initially deemed eligible to receive the
e-card. Since August 2016, coverage of the e-card food voucher has been expanding
at a rate of approximately 1,000 households per month. As such, the number of NPTP
30
beneficiary households receiving food assistance through the e-card reached 10,008
households (52,724 individuals) in December 2016.
4 Improving links between emergency response and longer-term programming
Both Syrian refugees and NPTP households benefiting from the WFP e-cards are eli-
gible to use them within the 480 WFP-contracted shops across the country. To ensure
not to overwhelm contracted shops, it was agreed to separate the dates of card loading
for Syrian refugees and Lebanese participating in NPTP. Therefore, refugee e-cards are
loaded on the fifth of every month, while NPTP e-cards are loaded on the 15th of each
month. The value of the unconditional cash transfer received monthly by each group of
beneficiaries through the e-card is also harmonized, so as to avoid any social tensions
which could arise. As such, the value of the NPTP voucher has ranged between $27 and
$30 per household member per month, capped at six household members. For refu-
gees, the voucher value has remained stable at $27 since February 2016.
4.8 Takeaways from linking emergency response and
longer-term programming
If well documented, quality pilots can have demonstration effects at national scale:
the experience of Mauritania illuminates how small-scale, externally funded human-
itarian programs informed subsequent large-scale initiatives, including as supported
by international finance institutions.
Large-scale emergency responses can provide a similar “proof of concept” for
national social protection programs. The Lebanon case study has shown this in rela-
tion to the extension of e-voucher to citizens modeled after the parallel refugee
scheme. This is particularly compelling for ensuring equity in provision in urban areas
where refugees and local residents live “side by side” and tensions may escalate
rapidly.
Guinea’s pilot of school feeding funded by the World Bank and implemented by
WFP in some of the remotest areas affected by Ebola show the benefits of protect-
ing human capital during crises.
Sharing information through a common registry does not require a common plat-
form per se, but the ability of different platforms to connect to each other. Kenya is
a premier example on how this process was achieved for national social protection
programs and extended to international humanitarian schemes.
Humanitarian actors have developed a number of data collection, analytical and pro-
gramming tools which feed into national country diagnostics, such as the Zimbabwe
Vulnerability Assessment Committee. These would be key for future expansions in
social protection. Meanwhile, data that are generated for the use of social protec-
tion programs may also be relevant for emergencies, whether they are collected by
national or international actors.
31
Rapid-onset emergencies when a rapid response may be a priority could entail sup-
porting needs that may not necessarily be covered by social protection systems,
Human(itarian) Capital?
whether by design or because of outdated information induced by the crisis. Hence,
it is important to plan in advance how needs will be met, including through social
protection schemes and other means.
While in some cases international humanitarian assistance is the first frontline pro-
vider of support, this may not always be the case. The experience of countries like
Fiji, for instance, illustrates a possible sequencing in rolling-out of assistance, includ-
ing by first extending government programs, and then providing top-up resources
by the humanitarian community. Such assistance can also be diversified according to
spatial circumstances (e.g., availability of markets) and include vouchers. However,
this can result in gaps in coverage among those not originally enrolled in govern-
ment schemes.
32
5 Provision of social
protection in
conflict settings
5.1 Syria: protecting lives and human capital during
conflict
The National Social Aid Fund, created in 2011 as a semi-autonomous entity under the
Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor, has become of limited relevance for the scale of
needs in the light of the subsequent years of conflict. With GDP more than halved,
80 percent of the population living below the poverty line, 13.5 million people in need
of humanitarian assistance, parts of the country besieged, and the regime highly con-
tested, there is little scope for working to strengthen government social protection. The
World Bank’s activities in Syria, including support to social protection, have been sus-
pended since 2011. WFP is implementing major humanitarian programs, but apart from
maintaining relationships with counterpart Ministries, the case study confirms the lim-
ited prospects for WFP or other humanitarian actors either to use existing government
structures or to encourage sustainability in longer-term social protection schemes.
A number of activities, however, could benefit an eventual Recovery and Peace Building
Assessment and, further into the future, the re-establishment of a national social pro-
tection program. These include initiatives where WFP continues to work with Syrian
ministries, such as those for health and education. For example, WFP regularly produces
and disseminates food security and nutrition vulnerability data as part of its General
Food Assistance and nutrition interventions. This also includes the identification of food
insecure districts, profiling of food insecure households, and market analysis. Other
activities such as conditional cash transfers to support education (out-of-school chil-
dren) and nutrition (for pregnant and lactating women), as well as support to resilient
livelihoods related to agricultural and livestock, could help lay the basis for social pro-
tection options as peace is re-established.
33
Human(itarian) Capital?
5.2 Yemen: addressing immediate needs and preserving
social protection
Unlike in Syria, the World Bank has maintained engagement and operations in Yemen
throughout the crisis and conflict. It deployed substantial grant resources—including
through restructuring and cancelation of its regular programs which were suspended
due to the conflict—both to address immediate social protection needs and to preserve
long-standing Bank, donor, and government investments in national social protec-
tion systems. The Bank’s operational engagement and financing flexibility has allowed
it to maintain a full partnership with international humanitarian actors such as the
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and UNICEF (in social protection) and
UNICEF, WHO, and WFP (in health and nutrition).
In 2016, the World Bank began a substantial re-engagement through grant fund-
ing, including via partnership with the UN agencies as recipients of International
Development Association (IDA) grants. Seven major grants have been approved—
including grants mainly channeled through UNDP and UNICEF for social protection
programs—with the dual aim of directly assisting impoverished Yemenis (with cash
assistance, income and livelihood opportunities, and facilitating health and nutrition ser-
vices) and maintaining the capacity of Yemen’s national social protection programs.
According to a detailed account by Alawi Al-Ahmadi and De Silva (2018, 38–39),
…the World Bank has shown flexibility in the interpretation and application of its oper-
ational policies, especially OP 2:30. The legal interpretation of operational policy
(specifically paragraph 3 of OP2:30) stipulates that if there is no government in power,
World Bank assistance may be initiated by requests from the international commu-
nity (for example, from UN agencies), subject in each case to the prior approval of
the Executive Directors of the World Bank… A request from the UN for the funding
addressed this question [and] for the first time in the World Bank’s history, the pro-
posed grants were to be made out of the country’s IDA resources…without government
acquiescence.
This support built on the experience of the World Bank’s engagement in Yemen’s social
protection agenda since 1995, including responding to the 2011 Arab Spring crisis
and the 2014 fiscal crisis. The Bank played a major role in building and strengthening
Yemen’s flagship social protection institutions. These include the Social Welfare Fund
(SWF), providing unconditional cash transfers to poor people, and the Social Fund for
Development, engaged in public works, training, the development of small and medium
enterprises.
As in other crisis-affected countries covered in this study, government-led social protec-
tion systems in Yemen were likely to be overstretched to meet a growing and changing
34
caseload as the conflict persisted. Nevertheless, the case of Yemen provides evidence
that even in the most severe complex emergencies, social protection systems built
for more stable settings might be preserved for the future while also contributing to
5 Provision of social protection in conflict settings
immediate emergency response purposes. Even in the present acute phase of the crisis,
international humanitarian actors such as WFP, UNICEF, and international NGOs con-
tinue to work with national social protection programs, coordinating activities with the
authorities on the ground, and adapting targeting and cash transfer decisions based on
experiences built up in partnership with the government between 2008 and 2014.
UNICEF, for example, as part of a Bank-funded $200 million cash transfer program to
1.5 million households, has adapted the SWF beneficiary list and design parameters of
the national program, while factoring in the conflict and child protection dimensions.
UNICEF continues to engage the SWF at the technical level, and the agency has bene-
fited from the government’s technical staff expertise on local communication strategies.
The emergency project has also introduced improved complaints and appeals mech-
anisms and alternative payment agencies and fostering partnership with local private
sector. These enhanced processes are expected to be transferred to SWF postconflict.
Figure 5 Adapting social protection to conflict in Yemen
Source: Alawi Al-Ahmadi and De Silva (2018)
Figure 5 lays out main adaptations to social protection before and after the conflict.
With the SWF beneficiary lists last updated in 2013, UNICEF carried out a beneficiary
identity verification exercise prior to launching the emergency cash transfer program
to ensure the integrity of the SWF list. While SWF beneficiary list was not updated to
accommodate the “newly vulnerable”—conflict-linked vulnerabilities—WFP has turned
increasingly to its own cloud-based beneficiary and transfer management platform
(SCOPE). This was apt in a context with a dearth of alternatives, and could eventu-
ally help strengthen Government systems and expand the national beneficiary registry.
Other international agency interventions, such as the introduction of e-vouchers and
biometric capability, or the introduction of alternative payment agencies, should like-
35
wise help strengthen national social protection systems in a postconflict Yemen.
Human(itarian) Capital?
5.3 Takeaways from conflict settings
When national delivery systems for social protection exist precrisis, they offer the
possibility to respond even in the midst of an active and complex conflict. They do
so by providing a starting point for targeting and delivery mechanisms for interna-
tional humanitarian assistance to individuals or households. The suitability of this
action depends on the extent to which those targeted by the national social pro-
tection program are also affected by the complex emergency, as well as on the
functioning of the mechanism in the crisis.
Conversely, the work carried out by humanitarian actors in complex crises like Syria
presents an array of activities that, while geared to short-term relief, may help lay
the basis for future re-engagement in social protection. These include geospatial
information systems, market analysis and nutritional programs, among others.
Development agency support to maintain the capacity of national systems during
crises—as in Yemen—may yield benefits for relaunching national social protection
programs after the crisis and rebuilding country systems. Grants for direct trans-
fers to beneficiaries, using national systems, serve a valuable humanitarian purpose.
Development-focused agencies intervening directly in complex emergencies may
want to take into consideration the humanitarian principles when planning their
approach.
Channeling World Bank grants to humanitarian agencies (such as UNICEF and UNDP
in Yemen) during a conflict may help forge or maintain partnerships that will be
useful for postcrisis investments in national social protection systems.
It will be important to consider how lessons and systems generated by UN agencies
during an emergency (vulnerability data, beneficiary lists, distribution systems, etc.)
can be retained and, if appropriate, shared with governments in a postcrisis setting,
particularly if personnel and resources are redirected elsewhere.
36
PART III
Conclusions
6 Emerging lessons
and broader
reflections
A set of 10 key lessons emerge from the case studies and broader literature. These
may lay the basis for a more in-depth conversation between the humanitarian and
social protection communities on how to build upon positive experiences and address
identified bottlenecks.
Leadership and engagement of national authorities must be the norm, not the
exception. The international humanitarian community plays a pivotal role in saving
lives and protecting people in contexts of pervasive risk and volatility. Where
national institutions collapse because of conflict, for example, a parallel system
could be established, humanitarian imperative upheld, and international law applied.
However, such an approach cannot be exported to contexts with an existing and
functional state—even if its capacities are nascent.1 Data and country experiences
show that it is not uncommon for humanitarian assistance to be delivered and coor-
dinated separately from national structures. The entry point for assistance in the
country should always be the national government: if it is not feasible or appropri-
ate to use national structures (because they are limited or inadequate), this should
be demonstrated. A coherent assessment of national systems before crises hit could
help map out, quantify and “stress test” those capacities. 2 Even where humanitarian
assistance runs in parallel, there may be still scope to introduce practical elements
1
If international aid has previously been delivered by an agency committed to humanitarian prin-
ciples, espousing neutrality and impartiality and based on the measured “needs” of individuals, a
shift towards government-led programming—and, specifically, government response through its
social protection schemes rather than through its own emergency response mechanisms—may
result in a change in emphasis of the principles, including based on politics and political economy
considerations.
2
See, for example, the various tools developed under the ISPA multi-agency platform (https://
38
ispatools.org/). In addition, a “stress test” of social protection by different shocks and scenarios
may help identify ex ante priority areas for investment, plan support by humanitarian and devel-
opment actors, as well as inform the outsourcing of risks via insurance products in ways that
conform to and strengthen national systems.
6 Emerging lessons and broader reflections
of alignment with pre-existing or future national social protection systems, such as
the use of local domestic institutions in Yemen.
Crises may present a trade-off between degree of ownership and a range of
dimensions, such as timeliness or accountability. Case studies show that—espe-
cially in low-capacity contexts— when crises hit, the design of the response entails
several core choices. 3 The first of these may be a trade-off between national engage-
ment and ownership and speed of response. The channeling of international funds
for emergency response through a government’s financial channel can strengthen
ownership; however, this may be slower to disburse than alternative routes (e.g.,
the Ebola response in Liberia). In Palestine, the domestic institutionalization of
WFP vouchers came at the cost of a slower rate in expansion, but this was deemed
acceptable given the gains in ownership. Of course, this is not always the case, as
the Fiji case study demonstrates, where government responded before the inter-
national humanitarian community. A second trade-off for international actors may
revolve around project accountability vs. program ownership. For international
actors, working through government structures may entail different reporting pro-
cedures. Parallel structures create fragmentation of overall crisis response, but may
enhance accountability of specific projects. Reporting requirements, for instance, are
often specified in donor contracts. Governments, too, can be affected by different
reporting burdens, depending on the nature of their collaboration with partners. 4
This implies that international agencies and donors could better align with national
processes, and pre-agree on special circumstances and arrangements whereby, in
the interest of effectiveness, responses could be adjusted. Operations could be
facilitated by ongoing work by the World Bank and UN agencies to standardize
operational reporting templates as part of contractual agreements.
There is a need for strategic, institutional and technical brokering at the intersec-
tion of humanitarian assistance—in all its definitions—and social protection. As
international humanitarian agencies develop approaches more closely connected to
social protection, and as development institutions move their operational frontier
toward more challenging contexts, there is a need to carefully manage the inter-
face of nascent national social protection systems and international humanitarian
3
O’Brien et al. (2018) identify seven factors that might be perceived to entail trade-offs in
programme design and the use of government systems during crises. These are the ability to
provide relevant support; coverage of the affected population; timeliness of response; sus-
tainability (especially national government ownership); predictability for implementers and
recipients; minimization of duplicated systems; and cost.
4
To some extent, the issues also pertain to approaches around social funds and Community
Driven Development. While these have not be the subject of our analysis, it might be useful
to conduct more research on their opportunities and limitations, especially in complex crises.
39
Experimental evidence from Sierra Leone, for example, points to CDDs as a powerful vehicle for
delivering assistance, while presenting limitations in terms of institutional inclusiveness, e.g., tap-
ping skills within the community for effectively submitting grant proposals instead of relying on
village leaders (Casey et al. 2018).
Human(itarian) Capital?
programs. This may entail a brokering function by designated bodies tasked with
navigating the technical and political economy challenges that transitions entail.
Shared planning and preparedness would help minimize unintended conse-
quences. The prospects of effective collaboration between actors working in social
protection and in emergency response may be increased if there is a unified vision on
diagnostics (i.e., a common understanding of the nature of the problem), and agree-
ment on the use of key mechanisms such as early warning systems. In contexts like
Palestine, actors have rallied around a concerted effort for diagnostics and match-
ing vulnerability profiles with interventions. In other cases, the fact that crisis-related
information systems—e.g., the International Phase Classification (IPC)—are often
used by the humanitarian community and less so in social protection can gener-
ate unintended negative implications. Different diagnostics and early warnings have
deep implications for design: if an IPC hits level five (famines), this has implications
for the level of assistance provided; instead, if social protection programs are based
on more chronic poverty variables and the IPC is not included in the policy frame-
work, there might be tensions in areas reached by both spheres. This was recently
the case for Madagascar, for example, which was not included in the case studies but
may offer valuable future lessons.
There is not always a neat separation between humanitarian and social protec-
tion systems. In most low-income countries, external financing heavily supports
both humanitarian assistance and social protection. Also, our case studies point to
a granular, modular division of labor between actors—sometimes governments
may provide the channel for transferring resources, but with programs being imple-
mented by other actors (e.g., Liberia); or external actors may channel resources, with
programs being implemented by domestic institutions (e.g., Yemen). Recognizing this
variety of models could help nuance the discussion on how to more flexibly, con-
cretely and creatively manage humanitarian–social protection transitions along the
continuum of combinations. 5
The absorptive capacity of national systems needs to be considered. National
social protection schemes in low and middle-income countries may be stretched
financially, institutionally, and administratively. This may be the case even before con-
sidering new caseloads that result from covariate shocks or from the transfer of
beneficiaries as previously supported by humanitarian assistance. Compounding this,
development actors may suspend capacity-building investments during crises, while
humanitarian actors may interrupt capacity-building initiatives when a crisis subsides
and funding declines. However, even where programs themselves are not mature
enough to support an additional caseload, routine social protection programs can
40
5
We find that it can sometimes be hard to identify if an intervention is responding to a shock
or to chronic poverty, especially as exacerbated by seasonal variations (Mauritania, Zimbabwe)
(Bradbury 1998). The distinction may matter less for considering the most appropriate response,
though it may have a considerable difference in terms of duration, funding etc.
6 Emerging lessons and broader reflections
still be developed in a way that considers future shocks, such as by adjusting the
gradual rollout of a program so that it prioritizes disaster-prone areas (Mozambique).
The absorption of additional beneficiaries (previously served by humanitarian assis-
tance) by social protection systems should be calibrated to the sector’s capacity. To
do so, measuring the degree of “readiness” of national systems to expand is key.
Cash transfer programs are a natural point of convergence between social pro-
tection and humanitarian programming—though they are not, of course, the only
type of program that has a potential crossover in crisis and noncrisis contexts
(Alderman et al. 2017). The impacts of providing assistance through cash—when
appropriate—have been amply investigated and demonstrated elsewhere. These
relate not only to increased household consumption among direct beneficiaries,
but also, potentially, to improved human development outcomes, multiplier effects
in the local economy and/or greater financial inclusion, depending on the design
(Bastagli et al. 2018). Our case studies have highlighted the use of cash transfers
in a range of contexts, including protracted crisis (Palestine), slow-onset droughts
(Kenya) and rapid-onset natural hazards such as typhoons (Philippines, Fiji). As for
other types of program, the case studies offered examples of food distribution,
school feeding programs, public works or asset creation programs (some of which in
any case use cash as their modality of payment to recipients), a subsidy and a formal
contributory pension scheme all having this potential role.
Both social protection and humanitarian assistance intersect with disaster risk
management institutions. If the interaction between international agencies and
government social protection ministries is being undertaken in a crisis context, the
national disaster management authority should be expected have a role in coordi-
nation and engagement in the response, if the crisis falls within its remit. Points of
intersection may include data and tools on disaster preparedness and response that
could be leveraged by social protection, and vice versa. Where there is agreement
on the value of the social protection sector being used as a vehicle for emergency
response, it is advantageous for this role to be acknowledged and framed consis-
tently both in a social protection sector policy (Mauritania, Mozambique) and in the
national disaster risk management strategy and plans (Fiji). In addition, it may be
valuable for the role of international humanitarian actors to be clearly articulated
ahead of disasters (Fiji).
There is an important agenda for more effectively building delivery systems in
partnership. Many elements of a delivery system may be developed in common, or
harmonized, between the interventions of international agencies and national gov-
ernments, or between those handling responses in crisis and noncrisis contexts.
Low-hanging fruit could include ensuring that actors (e.g., NGOs) collecting data
for a given program do so in adherence to an agreed protocol of data collection.
Our case studies have highlighted instances where governments and their part-
41
ners perceive the value in striving towards closer integration or sharing of ideas in
their particular context across a range of elements: these include high quality data
Human(itarian) Capital?
collection and analysis, approaches to targeting, the development of integrated
management information systems such as social registries, communications tools,
operational manuals and payment mechanisms. In complex emergencies where reg-
ular government service provision is not active, direct programmatic links may not
always be possible. Nonetheless, international agencies may be able to conduct inter-
ventions whilst being open to the eventual future adoption of successful practices
(Syria), or to maintain support to previously functioning government institutions in
order not to lose them (Yemen). Where government services are functioning, there
can be a mutual exchange of ideas and sharing of approaches and delivery sys-
tems, ranging from assessment forms to targeting methods, databases and payment
mechanisms (Lebanon, Palestine). These links become easier if the governments have
stronger social protection capacity (Fiji), and/or if their programs have similar target
populations or share similar objectives.
There is a need for better documentation of lessons, performance and knowledge
sharing in humanitarian assistance. The humanitarian programs of today might be
the social protection program of tomorrow. Indeed, national social protection sys-
tems often originate from humanitarian assistance. This was the case of Mauritania,
where the knowledge, tools and practices of NGOs, international humanitarian
actors, and donors was identified, institutionalized and scaled up by the govern-
ment, including with support from the World Bank and the International Monetary
Fund. The widely documented case of Ethiopia points to a similar process, with
decades of experience with past (pre-2005) Employment Guarantee Schemes being
leveraged to form the institutional and programmatic backbone of (post-2005)
public works under the Productive Safety Net Program. In many ways, the extent to
which social protection can build on humanitarian assistance hinges in part on the
quality of evidence available, as well as the documentation of practices and lessons.
While there are clear limitations in the kind of evaluations viable in crisis situations,
there is an encouraging growing trend in investing in evidence generation and knowl-
edge management even in some of the most challenging settings (Peterman et al.
2018).
42
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Social Protection & Jobs Discussion Paper Series Titles
2015-2018
No. Title
1802 Human(itarian) Capital? Lessons on Better Connecting Humanitarian Assistance and Social Protection
by Ugo Gentilini, Sarah Laughton and Clare O’Brien, November 2018
1801 Delivering Social Protection in the Midst of Conflict and Crisis: The Case of Yemen
by Afrah Alawi Al-Ahmadi and Samantha de Silva, July 2018
1705 Aging and Long-Term Care Systems: A Review of Finance and Governance Arrangements in Europe, North
America and Asia-Pacific
by Laurie Joshua, November 2017
1704 Social Registries for Social Assistance and Beyond: A Guidance Note & Assessment Tool
by Phillippe Leite, Tina George, Changqing Sun, Theresa Jones and Kathy Lindert, July 1027
1703 Social Citizenship for Older Persons? Measuring the Social Quality of Social Pensions in the Global South
and Explaining Their Spread
by Tobias Böger and Lutz Leisering, July 2017
1702 The Impacts of Cash Transfers on Women’s Empowerment: Learning from Pakistan’s BISP Program
by Kate Ambler and Alan de Brauw, February 2017
1701 Social Protection and Humanitarian Assistance Nexus for Disaster Response: Lessons Learnt from Fiji’s
Tropical Cyclone Winston
by Aisha Mansur, Jesse Doyle, and Oleksiy Ivaschenko, February 2017
1614 Urban Social Assistance: Emerging Insights from Three African Countries
by Vanessa Moreira and Ugo Gentilini, December 2016
1613 Issues for Civil Service Pension Reform in Sub-Saharan Africa
by Anita M. Schwarz and Miglena Abels, November 2016
1612 How to Target Households in Adaptive Social Protection Systems? Relative Efficiency of Proxy Means Test
and Household Economy Analysis in Niger
by Pascale Schnitzer, October 2016
1611 Pensions for Public-Sector Employees: Lessons from OECD Countries’ Experience
by Edward Whitehouse, October 2016
1610 Pension Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa: Brief Review of Design Parameters and Key Performance Indicators
by Miglena Abels and Melis U. Guven, October 2016
1609 Household Enterprises in Fragile and Conflict-Affected States: Results from a Qualitative Toolkit Piloted in
Liberia, Volume 2 – Annexes
by Emily Weedon and Gwendolyn Heaner, August 2016
1608 Household Enterprises in Fragile and Conflict-Affected States: Results from a Qualitative Toolkit Piloted in
Liberia, Volume 1 – Report
by Emily Weedon and Gwendolyn Heaner, August 2016
1607 Benefits and Costs of Social Pensions in Sub-Saharan Africa
by Melis U. Guven and Phillippe G. Leite, June 2016
1606 Assessing Benefit Portability for International Migrant Workers: A Review of the Germany-
Turkey Bilateral Social Security Agreement
by Robert Holzmann, Michael Fuchs, Seçil Paçacı Elitok and Pamela Dale, May 2016
1605 Do Bilateral Social Security Agreements Deliver on the Portability of Pensions and Health Care Benefits? A
Summary Policy Paper on Four Migration Corridors Between EU and Non-EU Member States
by Robert Holzmann, May 2016
1604 Assessing Benefit Portability for International Migrant Workers: A Review of the France-Morocco Bilateral
Social Security Agreement
by Robert Holzmann, Florence Legro and Pamela Dale, May 2016
1603 Assessing Benefit Portability for International Migrant Workers: A Review of the Belgium-Morocco Bilateral
Social Security Agreement
by Robert Holzmann, Jacques Wels and Pamela Dale, May 2016
1602 Assessing Benefit Portability for International Migrant Workers: A Review of the Austria-Turkey Bilateral
Social Security Agreement
by Robert Holzmann, Michael Fuchs, Seçil Paçaci Elitok and Pamela Dale, May 2016
1601 The Greek Pension Reform Strategy 2010-2016
by Georgios Symeonidis, July 2016
1507 Integrating Disaster Response and Climate Resilience in Social Protection Programs in the Pacific Island
Countries
by Cecilia Costella and Oleksiy Ivaschenko, September 2015
1506 Effectiveness of Targeting Mechanisms Utilized in Social Protection Programs in Bolivia
by Ignacio Apella and Gastón Blanco, September 2015
1505 Kyrgyz Republic: Social Sectors at a Glance
by João Pedro Azevedo, Paula Calvo, Minh Nguyen and Josefina Posadas, August 2015
1504 Entering the City: Emerging Evidence and Practices with Safety Nets in Urban Areas
by Ugo Gentilini, July 2015
1503 Pension Patterns in Sub-Saharan Africa
by Mark Dorfman, July 2015
1502 Social Protection in Fragile and Conflict-Affected Countries: Trends and Challenges
by Mirey Ovadiya, Adea Kryeziu, Syeda Masood and Eric Zapatero, April 2015
1501 Defining, Measuring, and Benchmarking Administrative Expenditures of Mandatory Social Security
Programs
by Oleksiy Sluchynsky, February 2015
To view Social Protection & Jobs Discussion Papers published prior to 2013, please visit www.worldbank.org/sp.
Abstract
Governments in low- and middle-income countries are increasingly investing in social protection,
and also address many of their own people’s “humanitarian” needs themselves. For their
international partners, who may have an important role in filling gaps when household needs
exceed national capacity to meet them, support for the strengthening of national systems—
combined with a shift from short-run to more durable approaches—is becoming a unifying
framework for assistance. Some aspects of social protection and humanitarian assistance
therefore seem to be on a converging trajectory. “Human(itarian) Capital” discusses findings
from 12 country case studies exploring the linkages between humanitarian assistance—in
its various interpretations—and national social protection systems. Specifically, the paper
distills lessons on how humanitarian assistance and social protection systems might better
coexist, the possible challenges and trade-offs emerging from practical experiences, and how
to facilitate, inform, and accelerate future concerted action.
About this series
Social Protection & Jobs Discussion Papers are published to communicate the results of The
World Bank’s work to the development community with the least possible delay. This paper therefore
has not been prepared in accordance with the procedures appropriate for formally edited texts.
This paper is a joint paper by the World Bank and the World Food Programme. The findings,
interpretations, and conclusions expressed herein are those of the author(s), and do not necessarily
reflect the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank and
its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of The World Bank or the governments
they represent, and the World Food Programme. The World Bank and World Food Programme do not
guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work. The boundaries, colors, denominations,
and other information shown on any map in this work do not imply any judgement on the part of The
World Bank or World Food Programme concerning the legal status of any territory or the endorsement
or acceptance of such boundaries.
For more information, please contact the Social Protection Advisory Service at socialprotection@
worldbank.org or visit us on-line at www.worldbank.org/sp.
© 2018 International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank, and the World Food Programme