What is Known About Capacity and Coordination of Social Assistance Programmes in Crisis Situations?

Abstract

This paper reviews the literature and documented evidence on capacity and coordination issues in crisis situations, where social protection and humanitarian assistance intersect. The paper finds that while there is a burgeoning literature that mentions capacity and coordination, very little of this focuses on crisis situations. Although both terms are mentioned frequently, they are rarely defined or robustly and systematically assessed. The little literature that does exist points to a substantial knowledge gap on both the ways in which capacity and coordination deficits undermine the delivery of social assistance in crisis situations and what can be done to overcome these deficits. Frameworks that could be useful in exploring these questions in crisis situations are identified including those that differentiate between technical and functional elements of capacity, and between technical, political, social and behavioural aspects of coordination.

Researching Capacities to Sustain Social Protection in Protracted Crises. Part 2: Early Findings

“…At the heart of the Better Assistance in Crises (BASIC) Research agenda is an attempt to plug a knowledge gap about existing social protection programmes. Our inception phase scoping work demonstrated that, in the midst of massive interest in shock-responsive social protection (Longhurst and Slater 2022), little attention is paid to what happens to existing social protection in situations of protracted crisis (Slater, Haruna and Baur 2022;Slater 2022). By placing substantial emphasis on how to flex and expand programmes vertically and horizontally, the shock-responsive social protection agenda has tended to take attention away from if and how existing programmes are able to sustain delivery to existing beneficiaries in situations of climate and/or conflict crisis.…”