Promoting adaptive social protection

The Sahel Adaptive Social Protection Program (SASPP) has supported six Sahelian countries in developing national adaptive social protection (ASP) programs to address chronic poverty and protect the most vulnerable against climate, disaster, and conflict-related shocks. Countries in the Sahel region are among the world’s poorest and the most susceptible to climate change impacts.

SASPP grants linked to IDA projects have helped Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Senegal establish ASP programs and delivery systems, including regular safety net programs, shock-response programs, and productive inclusion interventions to boost productivity and resilience to climate change. In addition to developing data and information systems, including social registries to identify and target beneficiaries, countries have defined policies and institutional mechanisms to anchor ASP systems and coordinate humanitarian and development actors. Work is also underway to establish sustainable financing mechanisms.

Since fiscal 2022, over 2 million people in the Sahel, including Cameroonian refugees hosted by Chad, have benefited from ASP programs, and over 100,000 households have benefited from the expansion of climate-smart productive inclusion interventions. Social registries now hold information on over 3 million households, representing about two-thirds of the poor in the region.

The activities in this story were implemented with the generous support of the following development partners:

Denmark, France, Germany, United Kingdom.

For more information on how trust funds help coordinate, innovate and catalyze development action, please see the World Bank Group’s FY24 Trust Fund Annual Report.