Linking Forecast-based Financing to Shock-responsive Social Protection Programmes to Scale Up Assistance against Climate Hazards

Abstract: Climate hazards are increasing globally both in their intensity and frequency, requiring more integrated approaches that also strengthen national leadership over disaster management. Mobilizing resources ex-ante has been demonstrated as an effective way of reducing the impacts of hazards on livelihoods and protecting development gains, while social protection (SP) has also been demonstrating capacity to deliver faster assistance to disaster affected areas. Consequently, this gives a rationale for the need to better understand how to link forecast-based financing (FbF), an anticipatory disaster risk reduction tool and national SP programmes in order to improve anticipatory disaster relief by leveraging SP’s existing mechanisms (e.g. dataset, delivery channels). A knowledge gap, however, remains between theory and practice, which this research seeks to fulfill by exploring constraining and enabling factors for bridging FbF and SP. To do so, there is a need to understand (i) the challenges of scaling up FbF as part of national disaster risk management strategies and plans, and (ii) the programme features that determine SP programmes’ shock responsive characteristics. Through qualitative methodology of a single case study approach, this research builds on primary data through semi-structured key informant interviews, and secondary data compiled by other researchers and organizations. Besides an established leadership, strong political will and government interest in FbF and shock-responsive SP, several challenges were discovered at design and policy level, which eventually hinder operationalization of an FbF infused SP programme. These include lack of local ownership over the design of FbF projects, an inaccurate national database for targeting households in hazard prone areas, policies that prevent SP programmes from expanding and releasing funds ex-ante, and unreliable source of funding.