Social Protection – A main Pillar in Drought Resilience?  Experiences from sub-Saharan Africa
Channel: Corbecoms
Date: 2017-06-07

Joint GIZ-DIE event starting with a keynote by Martina Ulrichs.

Background:
In the past five decades, drought has become a major problem in Africa. It has caused depletion of assets, environmental degradation, impoverishment, unemployment and forced migrations, thus threatening to undermine the development gains made. Especially in the drylands drought represents one of the most important factors contributing to malnutrition and famine that affects the poorest and most vulnerable communities. Climate shocks force poor households to liquidate productive assets such as livestock or land in exchange for food, default on loans, withdraw children from school, and/or engage in exploitive environmental management practices to survive. Furthermore, the lingering risk of drought weakens the ex-post adaptation options as it prevents farmers from adopting profitable technologies and practices that are perceived as risky, hence creating a nexus that increases the cycle of vulnerability and depletes the capability to overcome hunger and poverty. This inability to accept and manage risk and accumulate and retain wealth locks vulnerable populations in poverty and food and nutrition insecurity.
During the last decade, social protection instruments have gained popularity among policy responses to drought. An increasing number of governments in Sub-Saharan Africa have integrated cash transfer and public works schemes into their strategies for food and nutrition security and disaster risk management. These programmes shall prevent disinvestment and depletion of assets and enhance post-drought recovery, adaptation and resilience of livelihoods for the poorest parts of the population in affected areas. Most prominent examples are Ethiopia with its Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP), the largest safety net in Africa, outside South Africa, or the Kenya´s Hunger Safety Net Programme (HSNP). But can social protection programmes factually deliver the promises made?  

Panellists: 
Martina Ulrichs (Independent consultant)
Ralf Radermacher (GIZ)
Guush Berhane (IFPRI)
Bettina Tewinkel (KfW)

Moderators:                                                                                                                                             
Markus Loewe (DIE) 

The event is part of a series:

Research meets Development: 
Drought resilience in Sub-Saharan Africa 
Event series in the context of the “One World – No Hunger” (SEWOH) initiative of the 
German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) in the summer term 2017
 
More on the series at: https://www.die-gdi.de/veranstaltungen/drought-resilience-in-sub-saharan-africa/