Editing IPCC:AR6/WGII/Chapter-6 (section)

==== 6.3.3.2 Livelihoods and Social Protection ====

<div id="h3-16-siblings" class="h3-siblings"></div>

Understanding how livelihoods, particularly of the urban poor, are both impacted by climate risk and how they might be strengthened is central to understanding climate adaptation in cities and settlements (Dobson et al. 2015). Rapid urbanisation and expanding physical infrastructure do not have a clear relationship with improved outcomes for urban livelihoods of low-income residents (Soltesova et al., 2014). Municipal and national efforts need to be closely aligned with building adaptive capacity of residents themselves, often through community-based adaptation (Soltesova et al., 2014; Dobson, Nyamweru and Dodman, 2015). Social safety nets protect individuals or households from falling below a defined standard of living by providing cash, in kind and other social transfers to fight vulnerabilities ( [[#Islam--2019|Islam and Hasan, 2019]] ) including those associated with climate change impacts including food shocks. Strengthening the financial and social infrastructure of poor households is a critical component of adaptive and transformative capacity (Haque, Dodman and Hossain, 2014; Ziervogel, Cowen and Ziniades, 2016). Social safety nets are one mechanism for strengthening this capacity.

Social protection, or social security, is defined as the set of policies and programmes designed to reduce and prevent poverty and vulnerability throughout the lifecycle ( [[#ILO--2017|ILO, 2017]] ). Safety nets are intended to protect vulnerable households from impacts of economic shocks, natural hazards and disasters, and other crises. The UN policy frameworks for sustainable development, including the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030, the new Strategic Framework 2018–2030 of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and UNFCCC, highlight the essential role of social protection in promoting comprehensive risk management ( [[#Aleksandrova--2019|Aleksandrova, 2019]] ). Since the term Adaptive Aocial Protection was introduced by the [[#World%20Bank--2015|World Bank (2015)]] and the [[#IPCC--2014|IPCC (2014)]] , it has been an emerging strategic tool to integrate poverty reduction, disaster risk reduction and humanitarian development into adaptation to climate change (Béné, Cornelius and Howland, 2018; [[#Aleksandrova--2019|Aleksandrova, 2019]] ; Watson et al., 2016).

Adaptive social protection (ASP) is defined as a resilience-building approach by combining elements of social protection, disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation, so as to break the cycle of poverty and vulnerability of household by investing in their capacity to prepare for, cope with and adapt to all types of shocks, especially under climate change and other global challenges (Bowen et al., 2020; Ivaschenko et al., 2018). ASP has been justified as an effective instrument to build household and community resilience to climate extremes and slow-onset climate events such as sea level rise and environmental degradation ( [[#Schwan--2018|Schwan and Yu, 2018]] ; [[#Aleksandrova--2019|Aleksandrova, 2019]] ). In contexts of extreme poverty or climatic extremes, international development organisations, national provisions and market charities are complementary where family and kinship networks are weak and inadequate. To deal with short-term vulnerability to climate shocks, ASP can act as a crucial complement to risk management tools provided by communities and markets, tools which tend to be insufficient in the face of large or systemic shocks, by providing predictable transfers, developing human capital and diversifying livelihoods (Hallegatte et al., 2016). ASP can also facilitate long-term change and adaptation by improving education and health levels, as well as providing a proactive approach to managing climate-induced migration in both rural and urban areas ( [[#Schwan--2018|Schwan and Yu, 2018]] ; Adger et al., 2014).

Many national ASP programmes are established to cover both rural and urban areas, however, only a small number of researchers pay attention to urban cases ( [[#Aleksandrova--2019|Aleksandrova, 2019]] ). ASP instruments can be classified into four major types as presented in Table 6.5 (Ivaschenko et al., 2018; [[#ILO--2017|ILO, 2017]] ). ASP can contribute to both incremental and transformative interventions both at the system level (short-term and long-term coping strategies from communities) and at the beneficiaries’ level (vulnerable populations) (Béné, Cornelius and Howland, 2018; [[#World%20Bank--2015|World Bank, 2015]] ; [[#Aleksandrova--2019|Aleksandrova, 2019]] ; Ivaschenko et al., 2018).

'''Table 6.5 |''' Four categories and examples of adaptive social protection.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! '''Category'''

! '''Example'''

! '''Urban cases'''

! '''Function'''

|-
| Social safety nets (or social assistance)

| Conditional and unconditional cash transfers, including non-contributory pensions and disability, birth and death allowances;

Food stamps, rations, emergency food distribution, school feeding and subsidies;

Cash or food for work programmes;

Free or subsidised health services;

Housing and utility subsidies;

Scholarships and fee waivers, etc.

| * A targeted asset transfer project for urban extreme poor in Dhaka city ( [[#Hossain--2018|Hossain and Rahman, 2018]] )
* Emergency food stockpiling in Japan; safety net food stocks in India, Indonesia and Malaysia (Lassa et al., 2019)
* Household cash transfer programme in contingency planning in Mexico (Ivaschenko et al., 2018)
* Governmental transfer to hurricane affected households in USA (Bowen et al., 2020)
* Non-contributory disability cash benefits ( [[#ILO--2017|ILO, 2017]] )

| Incremental adaptation; protective measures

|-
| Social insurance

| Old age, survivor and disability contributory pensions;

Occupational injury benefit, sick or maternity leave;

Health insurance, etc.

| Old-age social pensions (Ivaschenko et al., 2018)

| Incremental adaptation and ''ex ante'' prevention

|-
| Labour market policies

| Unemployment, severance and early retirement compensation;

Training, job sharing and labour market services;

Wage subsidises and other employment incentives, including for disabled people, etc.

| Public works and employment protection in Africa, Asia cases ( [[#World%20Bank--2015|World Bank, 2015]] ; [[#ILO--2017|ILO, 2017]] ; Ivaschenko et al., 2018)

| ''Ex post'' protection and ''ex ante'' prevention measures, incremental adaptation

|-
| Livelihood development measures

| Income diversification, employment support, weather-index insurance, housing subsidies, post-disaster construction, relocation planning, livelihood shift strategies, etc.

| Multiple programmes for differing household needs in Philippines (Bowen et al., 2020);

Weather-index insurance in Chinese coastal cities ( [[#Rao--2019|Rao and Li, 2019]] );

Early warning forecast system and public meteorological service information in Beijing (Song, Zheng and Lin, 2021)

| Promotive and anticipatory measures; transformational adaptation

|}

ASP may be very good at reducing extreme poverty by helping to meet individual or household needs but not collective needs to mitigate long-term climate shocks. For example, few programmes consider risk assessment and climate-proof infrastructures as anticipatory measures to foster early action and preparedness ( [[#Aleksandrova--2019|Aleksandrova, 2019]] ; Costella et al., 2017). They therefore need to enable the adoption of forward-looking strategies for long-lasting adaptation ( [[#Tenzing--2020|Tenzing, 2020]] ). Some examples from China show social protection can improve adaptive capacity of urban communities with social medical insurance, housing subsidies, weather-index insurance, post-disaster construction, relocation planning, livelihood shift strategies, and so on. (Pan et al., 2015; Zheng et al., 2018b; [[#Rao--2019|Rao and Li, 2019]] ; Song, Zheng and Lin, 2021). However, social protection may lead to maladaptation in urban policy when social security, or similar tools (for example insurance) to compensate for exposure deincentivise risk reduction ( [[#Grove--2021|Grove, 2021]] ). In many developing countries, high concentrations of poor and vulnerable groups living in disaster-prone zones of urban centres, new urban dwellers and informal residents are often excluded from community-based networks and social services ( [[#Aleksandrova--2019|Aleksandrova, 2019]] ). Risk transfer tools (such as insurance) and risk retention measures (such as social safety nets) can avoid and minimise the burden of loss and damage and limit secondary and indirect effects ( [[#Aleksandrova--2019|Aleksandrova, 2019]] ; [[#Roberts--2018|Roberts and Pelling, 2018]] ).

Inclusive, targeted, responsive and equitable social protection can support long-term transition toward more sustainable, adaptive and resilient societies (Hallegatte et al., 2016; Shi et al., 2018; Béné, Cornelius and Howland, 2018; [[#Carter--2018|Carter and Janzen, 2018]] ; Adger et al., 2014). ASP systems can be cost effective and equitable when targeting accuracy, timely risk sharing (disaster assistance) and improved policy coherence. [[#Carter--2018|Carter and Janzen (2018)]] find that the long-term level and depth of poverty can be improved by incorporating vulnerability targeted social protection into a conventional social protection system. Countries at all income levels can set up ASP systems that increase resilience to natural hazards, but the systems need to identify cost–benefits and be scalable and flexible to adjust to future, increasing climate risk. [[#Bastagli--2014|Bastagli (2014)]] suggested a new design for effective social protection including: (i) increasing the amount or value of transfer; (ii) extending the coverage of beneficiaries; and (iii) introducing payments or new programmes of social protections. For social protection programmes to contribute more effectively to adaptation, they need to be better coordinated across a range of agencies; better integrated with climate data to anticipate times of need for vulnerable groups; and better aligned with other risk management instruments such as insurance (Agrawal et al., 2019).

<div id="6.3.3.3" class="h3-container"></div>

<span id="emergency-and-disaster-risk-management"></span>