Towards a Shock-Responsive Adaptive Social Protection System in Bangladesh

Adaptive Social Protection (ASP) helps develop resilience of poor and vulnerable households through investing in their capacity to prepare for, cope with, and adapt to shocks, in order to prevent them from falling into poverty. In the short run, shock-responsive social protection (SRSP) help absorb climate-induced shocks while ASP promotes climate resilience through an inclusive social protection system. Idiosyncratic and covariate shocks generated by climatic events impact adversely on various stages of life cycle of the affected communities, viz. early childhood, school age, youth, working age and old age. Gender-specific adverse shocks of climatic events have non-trivial impacts on the poor and vulnerable people that substantially reduce their welfare in the absence of effective adaptive and shock-responsive social protection system. Social protection policies and programs in Bangladesh include support and assistance to individuals and households facing various risks and vulnerabilities. The country is exposed to increased incidence of large and frequent climatic events, such as cyclone, floods, droughts and salinity. Climate change will be a major driver of strategy and resource use in social protection in the country in the backdrop of increased frequency of disasters leading to non-trivial damage & loss, vulnerability with the focus on effective short-term response and long-term recovery-resilience. Given this context, the present paper aims to assess the global practice of ASP and SRSP, review the policies and plans of the Government of Bangladesh, analyze the budget allocation and use in ASP and SRSP, and suggest an outline of a shock-responsive and adaptive social protection system in Bangladesh. Finally it elaborates the seven steps of the framework that include identifying shocks; assessing vulnerability, damage & loss; designing and modifying social protection programs; financing & implementing interventions; monitoring & evaluation; scaling up; and coordination & collaboration.