Share

Institute of Development Studies Working Paper 345, September, Brighton Alex Arnall, Katy Oswald, Mark Davies, Tom Mitchell and Cristina Coirolo (2010)

For a range of programmes for the agricultural sector in five South Asian countries, the study examines to what extent there is an amalgamation of various approaches like social protection, disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation in these public policies.

The public policy approach for combating the increasingly complex nature of vulnerabilities, particularly among population engaged in small-scale agriculture in developing countries, needs to encompass wider dimensions. An examination of programmes designed and implemented to tackle vulnerabilities reveals three broad approaches, namely Social Protection (SP) policies, Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) policies and Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) policies. In the contemporary world with climate change emerging as a major concern, it is being perceived that public policies need a greater amalgamation of these approaches in order to be more effective and efficient in their impact.
           
In this context, the Adaptive Social Protection (ASP) approach has been developed which aim to simultaneously tackle unsafe living conditions, counter the underlying causes of vulnerability, and promote people’s ability to adapt to a changing climate. Recognizing the multi-dimensional nature of poverty and vulnerability, the ASP draws upon a whole range of SP measures and instruments. Any SP policy has one or more of the four broad objectives namely protective measures to provide relief from deprivation, preventive measures against deprivation, promotional measures for enhancing income and capabilities and transformative measures, which address issues of social justice and exclusion.
           
In order to assess the extent to which development policies in South Asia are integrated and pose a coordinated response against vulnerabilities, Arnall et. al. uses a desk-based meta analysis to study 124 agricultural programmes in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan. The objective of this study is not to examine how successful the programmes are but to identify the extent to which they adopt the ASP framework. Based on the approach embedded in a programme (often more than one), the relative dominance of the various approaches are analysed as well as which approaches are more integrated in programmes.
           
The meta-analysis indicates that of the 124 programmes studied, 78 percent had some component of SP embedded in them. 58 percent of the programmes adopted DRR approaches while 35 percent had CCA approaches. Among all programmes, 42 percent were restricted only to a single approach, mostly SP. Another 42 percent embedded two approaches while only 16 percent of the programmes were actually constituted of all three approaches.
           
The degree of integration was much greater for programmes which also had the DRR or CCA approaches. 98 and 99 percent of these programmes respectively had more than one approach. On the other hand, among programmes that had the SP approach, 49 percent adopted a single approach. More notable, out of these single approach SP projects, only 6 (10 percent) were adopting transformative measures, while most constituted of protective and promotional measures. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), which is a rights-based programme and helps creating awareness among the poor rural labour regarding their rights, was a rare example of single approach transformative programme.

A cross-country analysis showed that proportion of programmes with all three approaches integrated was significant only for Bangladesh (22%) and India (20%), possibly because DRR and CCA were high on the agenda in these countries. While in all countries, the non-integrated SP projects were most common, in Pakistan, there was a high share of projects which integrated SP and DRR. This is probably due to the 2005 earthquake. Integration of SP and CCA approaches were negligible, except for the Rural Landless Programme in Pakistan and the Integrated Shelter Project in Afghanistan.

From the projects that integrated all three approaches, it was clear that enhancement of income and abilities (promotional measures) and redressing social inequalities and injustice (transformative measures) were more prevalent. More than 70 percent of these programmes, which represented the ASP approach, were implementing promotional and transformative measures. Protection measures are less important as with the addition of CCA, the time horizon of projects for reducing vulnerability expands and protective measures are normally used in the short-run. Two innovative ASP programmes were the application of Community-based adaptation measures to weather related disasters in Nepal and the pilot project on Climate Change Adaptation for Sustainable Rural Development in India.

The paper identifies the opportunities and constraints for greater adaptation of ASP approach in the five South Asian countries. This gives useful insights to future policy making for tackling vulnerabilities among small-scale farming communities. In both Nepal and Afghanistan, the major constraint for developing ASP projects (or even SP) is the low capacity to deliver and implement such projects. Though, the initiatives under the Afghanistan National Development Strategy (ANDS) and national initiatives like climate change knowledge networks in Nepal have prospects for developing more such projects.

The advantages in this regard that Bangladesh has, are the large number of organizations already involved in SP, DRR and CCA and the holistic approach of the government in developing integrated approaches to disaster risk reduction. However, there is need for more coordination among agencies and a national policy that creates synergies between different programmes. Pakistan has some experience of SP projects but these are mainly centered in the earthquake affected regions. There is need for considerable increase in the focus on climate change related vulnerabilities. While India has significantly increased her SP spending and lately also in CCA under the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC), the lacuna remains in the lesser capacity of implementation by the local self government agencies

What emerges from the study is that projects that follow the ASP approach normally go beyond protective measures and contain more income-enhancing measures and try to redress structural vulnerabilities like social discrimination. The authors also note that there is need for more coordinated policy approaches at national levels so that the ASP approach gets increasingly embedded in programmes formulated to tackle vulnerabilities.