Addressing the risk of maladaptation in Social Protection: The case of World Food Programme

Abstract

The need to adapt to climate change has been widely acknowledged as a challenge expanding beyond the discrete realm of adaptation initiatives. Accordingly, social protection has received growing attention due to its potential to promote adaptive capacity, whilst partly addressing both direct and indirect drivers of vulnerability to climate change. Addressing the risk of maladaptation has been proposed as a first step of this wider process, to avoid inadvertently increasing vulnerability that initiatives were meant to reduce. Based on a multidimensional analytical framework that understands maladaptation as a socio-political process, influenced by multiple drivers across several temporal and spatial scales; this thesis explores the case study of the World Food Programme, in Latin America and the Caribbean region. Through interviews, the empirical findings indicate that a long-term and systemic vision of social protection and climate change is crucial to leverage cumulative impacts of World Food Programme’s social protection work. However, a process-oriented analysis of the organisation finds continuities between their historical mandate and present attempts to act upon a broader adaptive landscape. Thus, underlining the influence of power and politics when framing and balancing multiple drivers. The study suggests that an inclusive negotiation of the adaptive-maladaptive continuum can potentially pose emancipatory opportunities for groups generally subjected as vulnerable. Hence, beginning social protection initiatives with an ex-ante approach to the risk of maladaptation can contribute to the explicit consideration of adaptation goals and barriers, by identifying the type of processes and outcomes perceived as important to avoid, in a given context.

Popular Abstract

In the context of climate change, how can maladaptation be addressed in social protection?

To address the risk of maladaptation in social protection, the inclusive deliberation of adaptation goals and barriers is the starting point for any initiative that, simultaneously, needs to be aware of its broader context which is affected not only by a changing climate but also by multiple drivers and other actors’ responses.

The risk of maladaptation involves the potential of initiatives, inadvertently, leading to negative consequences, such as increasing vulnerability to climate change or reducing people's capacity to adapt.
In social protection, the issue of maladaptation has been raised due to the dynamic and often uncertain impacts of climate change. The exacerbation of development issues, such as poverty and food insecurity, in addition to the increase in climate-related hazards, require an integrated approach. Since SP already addresses multiple risks and vulnerabilities, it has received growing attention for its potential to contribute towards adaptation. But for social protection to integrate adaptation, the risk of maladaptation needs to be considered, to avoid making people more vulnerable to climate change.

This paper seeks to understand how social protection can address the risk of maladaptation. This is done through the conceptualisation of maladaptation as a socio-political process that is influenced by multiple drivers and involves various temporal and spatial scales.
Through the case of World Food Programme and empirical data collected through interviews, the findings show that organisational adaptation goals for social protection must first be defined to assess maladaptation. Such goals will reflect the desired level of climate change integration in social protection, which will result in inherent trade-offs, reflecting the values and assumptions behind such decisions. The historical role of World Food Programme was found to shape current adaptation framing, resulting in the prioritisation of specific drivers of vulnerability to climate change. Multiple political processes, within the organisation and across the broader context of initiatives, shaped the potential for cumulative impacts. Thus, an inclusive negotiation of what constitutes adaptation and maladaptation is suggested to enable alternative perspectives and emancipatory opportunities for groups, generally, subjected as vulnerable. Therefore, starting any social protection initiatives with a process-oriented approach to maladaptation can clarify which processes and outcomes are perceived as important to avoid in a given context.

Most scholars have focused on avoiding ‘clear’ maladaptation outcomes. Contrastingly, this study explores the ubiquitous role of power and politics in maladaptation. Understanding vulnerability to climate change, as both climatic and non-climatic related, proved particularly useful in the case of social protection.

• author: Strøbech, Helene Lykke and Bordon Rosa, Andreia
• supervisor: Mo Hamza
• organization: Division of Risk Management and Societal Safety
• course: VBRM15 20201
• year: 2020
• type: H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
• subject: Social Sciences
• keywords: Maladaptation, Social Protection, Climate Change, Climate Change Adaptation, Pathways, Vulnerability, Adaptive Capacity
• language: English
• id: 9017585
• date added to LUP: 2020-06-16 12:23:26
• date last changed: 2020-06-16 12:23:26