Tailoring Adaptive Social Safety Nets to Latin America and the Caribbean

Williams, Asha ; Martinez, Ursula

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: SOCIAL SAFETY NET;    CASH TRANSFERS;    SOCIAL PROTECTION;    ADAPTIVE SOCIAL PROTECTION;   

RP-ID  :  150388

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Social safety nets (SSNs) areincreasingly relevant to helping households prepare, cope,and adapt to shocks in a climate of increased frequency andseverity of disasters. Disasters can impact the income,consumption, and human capital of households. Whiledisasters caused by natural hazards can impact anyone, thepoor often bear the brunt of shock impacts, while vulnerableand other disadvantaged populations fall into poverty. Whenpoor people are affected, the share of their wealth lost istwo to three times that of the non-poor, largely because ofthe nature and vulnerability of their assets andlivelihoods. The poor also often employ negative copingstrategies following disasters, with long-lasting effects onhuman capital accumulation and income. Where SSNs have goodcoverage, adequacy, and incidence, they help ensure that thehouseholds most likely to be severely impacted by theseevents are able to smooth their consumption, build humancapital, improve their assets and diversify livelihoods -all of which are increasingly critical to betterpreparedness for shocks and improved ability to cope with,and recover from, their impacts. An increasing number ofcountries have used their SSNs, primarily cash transfers andin-kind transfers, to respond to household needs followingdifferent shocks including disasters caused by weather andgeological events, economic crisis and most recently, theeconomic crisis due to the COVID-19 health pandemic. LatinAmerica and the Caribbean (LAC) exhibits larger coverage andexpenditures on SSNs compared to most regions, particularlyfor cash transfer programs. SSNs in LAC also demonstratecomparatively well-established SSN delivery systems. Giventhis, there is unlocked potential in LAC to effectivelyrespond to disasters by systematically using SSNs whenappropriate. This note presents key lessons and designconsiderations for LAC countries to better usetheir SSNs tohelp individuals and households prepare, cope and adapt tothe shocks they face. While this note focuses on disasterscaused by natural hazards, the framework and lessonspresented here are applicable to other types of emergenciesand shocks.