Social protection in response to covariate shocks: What works for children’s outcomes?

Globally, conflict, violence, forced displacement and climate-induced covariate shocks are on the rise, impacting millions of children and young people. In this context, the adaptive social protection model that integrates social protection with disaster risk management, climate change adaptation and humanitarian crisis, has gained considerable traction. Yet the knowledge base on the effectiveness of social protection interventions implemented in fragile and humanitarian settings, although rapidly growing, remains fragmented. Drawing on a large body of impact evaluation literature, we present results from meta-analysis as well as a narrative review of the effects on outcomes relevant to child well-being. Overall, we find consistent evidence that social protection in humanitarian and fragile settings helps children stay in school (6 per cent average increase across 14 studies) and decreases child labour (6 per cent average across seven studies), while helping adults get and keep jobs (6 per cent average increase across six studies). Evidence on nutritional impact is mixed, with small but positive effects for child height-for-age, and significant increases in household and child dietary diversity (by approximately 0.3–0.5 food groups). No impact on child weight-for-height z score was found. The qualitative review of evidence indicates a positive impact of humanitarian social assistance on the mental health of caregivers and household resilience. Notably, little attention has been paid in the literature (and relevant programming), to gender-related outcomes affected by adaptive social protection interventions.