Kathmandu, July 19
Save the Children, a major aid agency in Nepal’s social development, has suggested Nepal immediately needs a shock-responsible social protection system as the current system is not enough to protect the poorest and most vulnerable during climate crises.
“A study conducted by Save the Children and other development partners states that the current social protection policies and programmes are designed to address the poverty of the most vulnerable and marginalised households throughout their lifecycle and do not address shocks a family may face and are unprepared for,” the agency says in a press statement, “They do not offer any flexibility to scale up and scale out the interventions in response to disasters amidst rising impacts of climate change or economic shocks brought on by Covid, to name a few.”
“Thus, any response to shocks runs the risk of being ad-hoc, inadequate and without a connection to the existing social protection programmes. The report hence highlights the importance of shock-responsive social protection (SRSP) to strengthen people’s resilience during disasters.”
To make the protection system shock-responsive, there should be an Integrated and Inclusive National Social Protection Framework with a single registry, the organisation suggests. Similarly, high coverage programmes, such as Social Security Allowance, Prime Minister Employment Programme, and Child Grant Schemes, among others, should be designed to be scalable with the provision of disaster financing mechanisms in place.
