The UN World Food Programme (WFP), with the support of CIDT through the Social Protection Learning Facility, has published three policy briefs that focus on social protection and COVID-19 in situations of displacement, climate-related disasters and rural/urban contexts.

CIDT lead the Social Protection Learning Facility, which is an initiative led by the WFP Regional Bureau for East Africa. The Facility works to provide research, analysis and technical assistance to WFP Country Offices, as they seek to use social protection systems as a mechanism to respond to COVID-19 in their respective countries.

The three briefings highlight the compounding impacts of COVID-19 in places that already face substantial challenges to reduce poverty, vulnerability and instability.

Social Protection and COVID-19 in Urban and Rural Settings

This policy brief looks at the impacts that COVID-19 has on lives and livelihoods in either rural or urban contexts. Whilst it is understood that COVID-19 may have a more urban geographic outlook, the pandemic has implications for the vulnerability of those in both rural and urban settings and the brief explores how social protection might respond to livelihoods in these two different contexts.

Social Protection and COVID-19 Amidst Climate Shocks

Social protection can be used to build resilience of households experience climate-related shocks and stresses. This policy brief looks at some of the potential impacts and implications of the coronavirus pandemic on climate resilience work in East Africa drawing lessons from WFP’s programming in a number of countries.

Social Protection and COVID-19 in Situations of Displacement

In fragile and unstable contexts, existing vulnerabilities are compounded by the effects of the pandemic, exacerbating the existing challenges of saving lives and protecting livelihoods. This policy brief explores the implications of the pandemic for social protection in fragile contexts and how approaches may need to adapt for improved delivery of services.

Initially set up in May 2020, the Facility continues to work in partnership with the WFP Regional Bureau and East Africa Country Offices and the delivery team remains focused on:

• Providing technical support: providing advice to Country Offices based on their collective experience and knowledge of social protection and country contexts; and
• Documenting learning: Compiling and disseminating lessons, findings and experiences for future policy and programme design decision-making.

Links

1. Social Protection and COVID-19 in Urban and Rural Settings
2. Social Protection and COVID-19 Amidst Climate Shocks
3. Social Protection and COVID-19 in Situations of Displacement

Article first published on the Institute for Development Studies website. Authors: Rachel Sabates-Wheeler, Rachel Slater (CIDT), Jeremy Lind, Paul Harvey, Pauline Oosterhoff, Becky Faith, Lars Otto Naess, Jan Selby, Tony Roberts, Daniel Longhurst, Brigitte Rohwerder, Ella Haruna (CIDT).

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There has never been a more important moment to understand how to work with and help the most vulnerable people cope better with global shocks and crises. The global pandemic has shown how fragile our systems, communities and countries are – even in richer countries. The current status quo of social assistance in crises is deeply dysfunctional. Too many people in desperate need are getting no assistance and even for those that do get help, its delivery is too patchy to be relied upon.

Although social protection has the potential to address crises in different ways, the evidence base is thematically and geographically patchy. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office-funded (FCDO)-funded Better Assistance in Crises (BASIC) Research programme aims to inform policy and programming on effective social assistance in situations of crisis, including those experiencing climate-related shocks and stressors, protracted conflict and forced displacement.

We are working across eight cross-cutting areas as we continue to refine our research agenda in the programme’s inception year:

Routine, effective and efficient delivery

Whilst the ‘shock-responsive social protection’ agenda broadly has gained traction and produced multiple initiatives on the ground, less is known about its success and applicability in conflict-affected situations. The agenda has largely focused on climate shocks or ‘natural’ disasters, so very little is known about how, for example, longstanding programmes in Iraq, Syria, Yemen have been maintained.

What is known about how social assistance is sustained in crisis, especially those of violent conflict and instability? Across this theme, we are looking at the effectiveness and efficiency of a humanitarian response routed through social assistance, and at the ways that government-led social assistance can be routinely and sustainably delivered.

Financing and value for money

Financing assistance in FCA is complex, with strong siloes or restrictions between humanitarian, climate and developmental assistance, and often constrained options to improve the financing for programmes and systems development. At the same time, the “value for money” and cost vs benefit of investing in long term approaches to risk reduction are increasingly well established. However, the right balance of actors, programmes, and financial tools in fragile and conflict situations remains a fragmented discussion, even though in practice these often co-exist and need to evolve together.

Given the extremely risky world in which we live where shocks are expected, and a long-term perspective is necessary we will ask better questions about the trade-offs involved. This approach is interrogating how risks, to households and to government systems, are ‘costed in’ to any assessment of options, the balance between programming objectives and financing imperatives, and how short-term pressures can be transparently weighed against long-term costs and benefits.

Risks, accountability and technology

Aid agencies, governments and donors are investing in new ways of managing data and processes such as registration in ways that open new possibilities for greater accountability and efficiency but also risk new exclusions and violations of the rights of vulnerable groups. The use of digital technologies and pressure to innovate can be in tension with the precautionary principle; the voices and interests of affected populations must remain central.

The overarching research question is whether the most vulnerable people in crisis situations benefit from these systems? This involves shifting the focus from ‘inclusion errors’ (those who are included/benefit by mistake) to those experiencing ‘exclusion errors’ (those who are excluded from benefits by system failings/errors); either because of the design of the system of because of structural inequalities in access to and use of digital technologies.

Climate resilience

We need to improve our understanding of the nature, causes and multiple dimensions of climate vulnerability and resilience within FCA contexts; and to examine the role that social protection plays, and might play, in enhancing climate resilience within these settings. This will involve examining how climate resilience should be understood in FCA settings, in the context of climate change affecting the incidence of sudden shocks; leading to longer-term environmental changes, and also the fact that climate adaptation and mitigation actions may cause or contribute to economic and political changes.

What role does social protection play, or might play, in enhancing climate resilience within FCA? We are focusing particularly on how social protection affects, or might affect, the availability of those environmental and socio-economic resources which underpin climate resilience, in both the short- and long-term.

Politics, principles, and the role of the state

Places that are marked by violence, conflict and contested public authority, present difficulties in extending social protection coverage and strengthening national systems for social assistance. Other stakeholders such as non-state armed organisations, religious figures and networks, clans, and customary authorities, often have a significant influence on provisioning and mediating decisions on who is covered and who is not – even in cases of ‘formal’ social protection.

With a focus on the politics of social assistance in crises in terms of formal policies and approaches of governments and international actors) and from below (how social assistance is governed at the sub-national level), this theme is exploring the ways in which crisis-affected populations seek to navigate access to social assistance in contested spaces, and perceptions of different support that is provided.

Displacement

The increasing duration of exile is a consequence of the intractability of the political crises that produce displacement in the first place. Over the long term, displacement itself inevitably increases the difficulty of resolving such crises, increasing multiple vulnerabilities, damaging individual livelihoods and interrupting education. Climate instability may exacerbate both the causes and the effects of displacement. Over time, displacement becomes a further factor in ongoing instability at national or regional level.

While political will has recently manifested in the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR), it is a complex and dynamic political and conceptual landscape. The GCR emphasises self-sufficiency and sustainability of responses to displacement, which frames an important role for social assistance.

Inclusion

A variety of barriers means that existing programmes do not reach vulnerable and marginalised groups, while accessing social assistance can sometimes entail protection risks, such as violence, theft, bribery and intra-household and community tensions.

In this theme, we are focusing on what prevents social assistance from meeting the needs of excluded and vulnerable people during crises and what can be done to address this. Such intersecting vulnerabilities include those relating to gender, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics, caste, ethnicity, and statelessness. Transformative approaches to social protection that focus not just on assistance but on areas such as the right to work, freedom of movement and protection from violence are therefore especially needed, precisely when they are most difficult to put into place.

Livelihoods and transformation

While mainstream social protection sits in the realms of ensuring lives and livelihoods are supported in the event of predictable stresses (such as seasonality, loss of income from retirement, disability, or unemployment), disaster response (and the humanitarian system that accompanies it) is about planning for and managing the fallout of extreme events (most typically natural hazards) such as droughts, storms, and floods, turning into crises. Indeed, the new ‘hazard’ on the social protection block is conflict.

We need to understand if the standard framings and interventions of social protection are suited to contexts of conflict and violence. How do we provide social protection and rights in these places, how do we set up systems that can change the structures in which people can access livelihood opportunities? This theme is looking at the ways that the sectors have approached risk, shock and livelihood resilience and explore if there are avenues for bringing these distinct conceptualisations and associated programming into one framing.

Image: Women in Leadership Course for The African Union in Rwanda
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‘The true tale of the lion hunt will never be told as long as the hunter tells the story…’ (African Proverb)

During the last few years we have witnessed a rapid growth of gender movements like #metoo, #timesup, #generationequality, but Black, Asian and ethnic minority voices remain at the periphery of these campaigns. CIDT’s Rufsana Begum argues that we cannot truly celebrate ‘International Women’s Day’ until women are equal with each other.

Speaking on intersectional approaches to women in leadership at the University International Women’s Day Careers Conference Rufsana shares some highlights from the session:

“Workplaces consist of invisible power dynamics and privileges that sustain social inequalities.”

Our inability or reluctance to dialogue openly and honestly with BAME women leads to marginalising their experiences. If there is to be real change it is imperative that we go beyond the ‘politeness protocol’, have ‘uncomfortable conversations’ in the workplaces and create inclusive spaces where BAME women can share their lived realities.

In the words of Morgan Jenkins (2018)

“We cannot come together if we do not recognize our differences first. These differences are best articulated when women of colour occupy the centre of the discourse while white women remain silent, actively listen, and do not try to reinforce supremacy by inserting themselves in the middle of the discussion.”

In this process, we understand the role power plays in our working relationships, how our privileges maintain status quo and challenge micro-aggressive behaviours that prevent BAME women from speaking out.

This is a call to action: interrogate power and analyse privilege in support of genuine equality

Understanding Privilege

Privilege comes in many forms, including race, gender, sexuality, ability, language, wealth, physical fitness, safety, and educational attainment and even height.  However, the people who have those things are usually unaware of their power and influence.

According to American sociologist, Prof Michael Kimmel, “Privilege is invisible to those who have it.”

“I am the generic person. I am a middle class white man. I have no race, no class, no gender. I am universally generalizable,” says Kimmel.

Privilege is systematic in favouring, validating and including certain social identities over the other.

Having privilege does not mean that an individual is immune to life’s hardships, but it does mean having an unearned benefit or advantage one receives in society by nature of their identity.

It’s important to understand – just because we have don’t have certain kinds of privileges, it doesn’t mean that we don’t benefit from other kinds of privileges. I’ll use myself as an example: I am a woman, Bangladeshi-British but I also have the privilege of living in the UK, I am heterosexual, holding a graduate degree, having financial resources, and access to healthcare.

Understanding Power

Power is the ability to influence and make decisions that affect others.

Derald Wing Sue (2016); argues that “true POWER resides in the ability to define reality; where the members of the majority group are able to impose their world view on the rest of the members of marginalised groups which discounts their experiential reality where race/ethnicity are a constant factor.”  Members of majority group possess the tools – education, media, social groups, peers, institutions – that define and reaffirm their worldview.

The worldview of BAME women and men is different from white people; acknowledging this is the FIRST step. Race, ethnicity and colour make up our social identity and how we experience and see the social world; therefore race issues are inter-connected with issues around gender equality.

Understanding intersectionality

“The biggest obstacle is that we keep trying to silo the issues and that we’re not seeing them as interconnected the way they need to be seen.” (Teresa Younger, 2020)

Once we understand that power gives us the ability to define reality, we are required to take an intersectional perspective in approaches to gender equality, where race/ethnicity are not a secondary issue.

When Kimberle Crenshaw coined the term intersectionality, she was describing the way in which multiple oppressions are experienced. This notion extends to dis(ability), sexual orientation, social class, religious discourse and so on. Where there are gaps in our understanding of underrepresented group experiences at work, an intersectional approach is the vehicle that allows for the experiences of underrepresented groups to be heard and understood.

The only way to understand and interconnect these aspects of identity is to listen to BAME women’s unique experiences and validating them.

So what next?

Go beyond the diversity data and explore nuances around BAME women’s unique experiences. You can encourage uncomfortable conversations when you:

1. Acknowledge your privilege. We ALL have it.
2. Become aware
3. Educate yourself
4. Reach out to diverse group members and hear their experiences
5. Question existing power dynamics. E.g. in meetings who is consistently speaking? Whose voices are marginalised? Why?
6. LISTEN – resist the urge to deny, invalidate, avoid the discussion – its human nature to avoid and defend. To TRULY create an inclusive culture, we need to make space for hear,  validate and explore these issues of racism and discrimination that BAME women and men face every day.
7. Lean into the uncomfortable. The only way to address the challenges associated with racism, sexism, other forms of inequalities and micro-aggression in the workplace is to be open to experiencing discomfort in an honest and forthright

Finally ask yourself: are you a Silencer or Amplifier?

Use your privileged voice to raise others up; you will not lose privilege in this process!