If it’s a Safety-Net, is it
Resilient?
Mara Russell
April 25, 2012
Improving Resilience in Food Insecure
Communities
What is a Social Safety-Net?
A social safety net is a system of providing resource transfers to
low-income and other vulnerable individuals and populations
who are unable to meet basic needs for survival and human
dignity. Individuals may be unable to meet these needs due to a
shock. Such individuals are often dependent to some extent
upon outside resources to meet their basic food and livelihood
needs. (Office of Food for Peace, Fiscal Year 2010: Title II
Proposal Guidance and Program Policies)
3 Types of
Social Safety-Nets
• Unconditional social safety nets provide resource transfers based
solely on criteria of need.
• Conditional social safety nets provide a resource transfer
contingent on certain behaviors, such as sending children to school
or bringing them to health centers on a regular basis. Conditional
social safety nets address both short-term protection objectives
while promoting the longer-term accumulation of human capital.
• Productive social safety nets provide a resource transfer to
chronically food insecure people who, in exchange for the transfer,
provide labor to build community assets. Productive Safety Nets
also help prevent households from selling off productive assets
such as animals. In a chronic food insecurity situation, a productive
safety net might be a seasonal intervention.
What is Resilience?
• “…the ability of countries, communities, and
households to manage change by maintaining
or transforming living standards in the face of
shocks or stresses – such as earthquakes,
drought or violent conflict – without
compromising their long-term prospects.”
(UK Department for International Development (DFID). 2011.Defining
Disaster Resilience: A DFID Approach Paper, in Frankenberger, et. al.
“Building Resilience to Food Security Shocks in the Horn of Africa”,
March 2012)
Are Safety- Nets
Resilient?
• Yes:
– Safety-net transfers help people maintain living
standards in the face of shocks or stresses
– Enable/support people to protect assets
– Meet immediate and life-saving needs
• What makes a safety-net effective?
• Are safety-nets sufficient?
•
•
•
•
Have assets, often insurance
Impact of shock – transitory
Immediate short-term
assistance
EWS
Safety-nets prevent falls
below the threshold
POVERTY THRESHOLD
•
•
•
•
Few, if any assets
Impact of shock – severe,
chronic
Difficult to maintain assets
with or without shocks
Require assistance to stay
where they are
Safety-nets enable
maintenance and survival
Source: Christopher B. Barrett, Food Aid As Part Of A Coherent Strategy, Background Paper for FAO State of Food and Agriculture, 2006, March 2006
Types of safety-nets
• Timeframe/Duration:
– Short-term, Medium-term, Longer-term
– Seasonal or Cyclical
• Objective of Protection/Response:
– Health/nutrition: WASH, medicines, food, safety/social, cash
– Assets: food, feed, seeds/tools, cash, financial, animals
– Infrastructure: Roads, Water, Natural Resources, Human
Resources, Markets/Commerce
• Conditionality:
– Unconditional – transfer with no required pay back
– Conditional – transfer with behavioral pay back
– Productive – transfer with labor pay back
Conditionality Issues
• Perceptions by households & communities:
– Are transfers seen as more important than the assets
developed or behaviors incentivized?
– Would beneficiaries have implemented the activity or
adopted the behavior without the transfer?
– In some cases, behaviors, assets, and infrastructures
are seen as intrinsically valuable, while in other cases
the value may not be clear as separate from the
transfer
– Unless community/households empowered, may
reduce the management or control the asset or
infrastructure – seen as coming from outside
Resilience (Revisited)
• “…the ability of countries, communities, and
households to manage change by maintaining
or transforming living standards in the face of
shocks or stresses – such as earthquakes,
drought or violent conflict – without
compromising their long-term prospects.”
Communities and
Households Manage Change
• Implies communities and households have a
stake and a say – i.e. governance
• Implies people are empowered to assert
themselves, have agency
• Implies self-efficacy – a belief in one’s ability
to make a difference
• Implies capability, knowledge, understanding
of conditions and how to address them
Maintaining or Transforming
Living Standards in the Face of Shocks or Stresses
• Implies potential for improvement above a
baseline
• Implies potential to make positive changes in
the face of adversity (…even because of it?)
– People may change behaviors, protect household assets,
and build community infrastructure as a result of shocks
and stresses
– Implies empowerment and efficacy in the face of
adversity
What is a Cargo Net?
Source: Christopher B. Barrett, Food Aid As Part Of
A Coherent Strategy, Background Paper for FAO
State of Food and Agriculture, 2006, March 2006
Cargo nets…help climbers surmount
obstacles or can be used to lift people
and communities, overcoming the
structural forces that otherwise keep
them down. Cargo nets are thus meant
to lift those who fall below critical
thresholds or to help them climb out of
chronic poverty and food insecurity…
Cargo net interventions aim at building
chronically poor participants’ asset
stocks and/or improving the productivity
of assets they already possess.
•
•
•
•
Have assets, often insurance
Impact of shock – transitory
Immediate short-term
assistance
EWS
Safety-nets prevent falls
below the threshold
POVERTY THRESHOLD
•
•
•
•
•
Few, if any assets
Impact of shock – severe,
chronic
Difficult to maintain assets
with or without shocks
Require assistance to stay
where they are
Difficulties increase with
time/resources invested in
safety-nets
Cargo nets enable people to
climb out of chronic poverty
and food insecurity
Safety-nets enable
maintenance and survival
Source: Christopher B. Barrett, Food Aid As Part Of A Coherent Strategy, Background Paper for FAO State of Food and Agriculture, 2006, March 2006
Resilience beyond
Safety-Nets
• Safety-nets are critical and necessary for basic needs,
survival, human dignity, and asset protection
However, more is needed for resilience:
• Strong safety-nets build capacity, ownership, and
management capacity: Governance
• Enable people to understand vulnerabilities and
respond appropriately
• Focus on intrinsic value of behaviors
• Focus on transforming living standards: “Cargo net”
interventions – building assets
Thank You!