revival of the export sector felt that income increases did not fully compensate for food price inflation. These are some of the reasons that resumed growth rates had not yet translated into noticeable improvements in the livelihoods of poor people in surveyed sites.

Although the types of coping mechanisms used by the poor to cope with the global food, fuel, and financial crises are often similar to those used when coping with more localized shocks, there is a sharp difference in their effectiveness. The large and protracted crisis rendered the traditional informal safety nets of the poor ineffective. The informal sector was hit by the crisis and exposed to suddenly increased competition and reduced remittances, and religious and mutual solidarity dried up as needs grew and fewer could afford to contribute. Interviewees were trying to avoid sale of major livelihood assets, particularly houses and land. They would rather send children to work and eat less than sell their property. Many families, however, were on very poor diets but kept children in school. People often tried to identify new livelihood options and move to other sectors, localities, and occupations. These attempts were often unsuccessful, in part because they were simultaneously pursued by many other competitors, yet there were also examples of adaptation of business strategies and creative diversification that helped people cope through the bad times.

What kind of policies and programs should governments consider to help reduce vulnerability to future shocks? The analysis of the case studies demonstrates the need for more effective and more generous social protection systems, support packages for informal enterprises and smallholder farmers, including access to credit and debt refinancing schemes, as well as measures to strengthen community cohesion.

# **Improve Social Protection and Access to Public Services**

The analysis of the country case studies confirmed the importance of preexisting social protection schemes in responding to shocks of massive scale. In countries where such programs have been in place (in our sample, the formerly socialist states), poor people were better protected in comparison to countries that did not have such schemes. In all countries surveyed the crisis also exposed the weaknesses of existing social assistance programs—low generosity, poor targeting, low quality of in-kind assistance, and in some instances inability to sustain the pre-crisis initiatives due to fiscal pressures. This research also showed that the vision of comprehensive shock response programs should be wider than most current social protection programs in developing countries, which tend to focus on modest cash transfers to the chronic poor. In particular, the country case studies demonstrated the value of free or subsidized health and education programs in protecting human capital during the worst of the crises. Free schooling and provision of school meals and uniforms were critical to keeping children in school. Many findings also pointed to a pressing lack of short and flexible skill-building programs to address the needs of the informal sector and to improve employment outcomes for laid-off workers from formal enterprises.

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