Research Watch
Social Protection in Emergency Situations
Social protection has
increasingly been considered as an effective policy-level intervention for
reducing vulnerability and extreme poverty, and for contributing to the
development and structural transformation of a society. In their capacity of
providing responsive long-term systems, Social Protection programmes can help
to reduce poverty, inequality and deprivation, as well as stimulate human
development, social peace and resilience.The increased complex and
protracted crises that have forced nearly 60 million people, half of them
children, to leave their homes due to conflict and violence; the human and
economic cost of disasters highlighted
the need for considering long-term policy responses able to reach
vulnerable populations in a more consistent way. An International
Conference on Social Protection in Contexts of Fragility and Forced
Displacement took place in Brussels in September 2017 with the aim to shed new
light on the prospects of using social protection systems in these contexts; to
highlight the opportunity for humanitarian responses either to build on
existing social protection systems or to help create them, with a view to work
towards a humanitarian-development continuum.Innocenti communication
team interviewed six experts attending the Conference to talk about existing
challenges, experience and potential social protection programmes in contexts
of fragility, forced displacement, and prolonged crisis, as well as to identify
future directions for research. Watch the videos and listen to Tilman Bruck,
Sheree Bennett, Andrew Kardan, Paolo Verme, Ugo Gentilini and Fabio Veras
Soares.