ASPECT – Adaptive social protection: Evidence for child outcomes in fragile settings
From evidence to policy and practice: Learning what works, and what doesn’t, for strengthening adaptive social protection in fragile settings.
ASPECT – Adaptive Social Protection: Evidence for Child Outcomes in fragile settings is a thematically focused five-year project nested within the evaluation partnership currently in effect between the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and UNICEF Evaluation. It is a collaborative effort between UNICEF's Evaluation Office, Programme Group/Social Policy Section, Innocenti – Global Office of Research and Foresight, and Division of Data, Analytics, Planning, and Monitoring. A multi-stakeholder event is scheduled to take place on 29–30 April to consolidate the learning of Phase I of the ASPECT project. This workshop will bring together UNICEF, BMZ, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and academic experts to facilitate exchange and technical discussions. The workshop's primary objective is to refine the ASPECT project’s learning agenda for 2024–2027. The workshop aims to provide an opportunity for stakeholders to share their knowledge and expertise and to explore ways to improve the effectiveness of adaptive social protection in managing disasters and climate change adaptation outcomes.
ASPECT stakeholders’ workshop | 29–30 April 2024
Children worldwide are increasingly vulnerable to natural disasters, economic crises, pandemics, conflicts and forced displacement. Children, particularly those in low- and middle-income countries, are among the most affected groups, facing risks of long-term human capital losses. Globally, 333 million children live in extreme poverty, and 164 million of those children live in countries affected by conflict and fragility. By integrating the analysis of climate change and disaster risks, adaptive social protection can contribute to disaster risk management and climate change adaptation outcomes while supporting families through cash and services in times of crisis.
All over the world, children are bearing the brunt of crises, as families pushed to the brink spiral into ever-deeper vulnerability. It doesn’t have to be this way: adaptive social protection can help children and their families be more resilient to shocks, cushioning the impact of crises and helping families avoid negative coping strategies. But what works best, for whom, and how?
On 6 February 2024, UNICEF and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) organized a side event of the UNICEF Executive Board, presenting ASPECT: Adaptive Social Protection—Evidence for Child OuTcomes, designed to meet the strategic evidence needs of the partners engaged in adaptive social protection to close the loop from evidence to policy to practice.
The event provided an opportunity to highlight the role of impact evaluations in understanding what works and what does not work in humanitarian and fragile contexts and facilitate exchange on strengthening evaluative culture and use of evidence in response to increasingly fragile operating environments. The expert panel included Hon. Kabir Hashim, member of Parliament of Sri Lanka, Chair of the Global Parliamentarians Forum for Evaluation; Florence Kondylis, Lead Economist, Economic Transformation & Growth Research Program Manager, Development Impact (DIME); and Cyrus Samii, Associate Professor, Wilf Family Department of Politics of New York University.
