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Nepal

Linking Nepal’s Social Protection Programs with Anticipatory Action

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As an auxiliary to the Government of Nepal, Nepal Red Cross Society (NRCS) has been supporting in overall disaster management (DM), now particularly to integrate Anticipatory Action (AA) into the DM cycle. NRCS has been exploring different ways of linking SPP and AA with the assumption that:

• this can improve time and cost efficiency as existing systems are utilized to take early actions.

• and ensure sustainability of AA as SPPs are already institutionalized.

In 2021, a multi-purpose cash (MPC) assistance was provided to vulnerable groups (Sr. Citizens, Persons with disabilities, Single and widowed women, Dalit children under five) affected by flood in Tikapur and Janaki of Kailali district through leveraging Nepal’s Social Security Allowance (SSA) program’s financial, IM, grievance, and communication infrastructure, to meet basic needs and support early recovery of individuals. This proved that the government’s social protection system can be used to provide cash assistance at scale before or after a disaster in a cost- and time efficient way. It also opened the path for the Nepalese government and humanitarian actors to use pre-existing government mechanisms to meet humanitarian needs.

Additionally, there are other vulnerable groups besides the ones covered by the SSA program who also have special needs who require support in early actions. NRCS has been exploring ways to target such groups for AA by utilizing SPP registries besides SSA. For this, a database mapping exercise was done in preparation of the workshop (Annexed in the brief/report) to map existing data from different SPPs at the Municipalities that could be relevant for early action and response. As a next step, a workshop was designed to bring in representatives from different sectoral departments of the 4 champion municipalities (Tikapur and Janaki in Kailali district, Laaljhadi and Punarbas in Kanchanpur district). The database mapping was shared during the workshop for validation and used to explore feasibility of using it for early action and response planning.

These two exercises have shown that in addition to the federal level database, the local governments have a rich and diverse database encompassing multi-sector – vital civil registration, livelihood, health, education, disaster etc. These databases can be leveraged for pre-identification of beneficiaries (based on vulnerability and exposure to disasters) which is critical for targeted early actions. Designing and planning early actions based on government’s existing database will not also be resource efficient but will also ensure institutionalization and sustainability of AA.

In Nepal, Social Protection Programs are designed at either federal, provincial, or local level. While larger programs such as Social Security Allowance, Prime Minister Employment Program, Mother Program etc. are designed and financed by the federal level, programs such as Bank account for daughters - lifelong security and the Disaster Risk Insurance are Provincial government programs. Leveraging federal SPPs with humanitarian assistance can provide a way to reach a large-scale disaster that affects across districts and regions, however, there is a potential to tap into the provincial and local level programs to aid with disasters with local impacts.
Notably, significant investment is currently underway in Nepal on the development of a comprehensive national ID system, with ambitions of linkages with relevant social protection programs. The National Planning Commission is also working on developing an integrated SPP framework. Moving ahead, the Red Cross movement can inform policies and guidelines for these plans based on our exercise with the municipalities of leveraging these databases for early actions and response.

For more learnings from the workshop, please read the full report or the brief.

Contact Alina Karki, Sr. Social Protection Program Officer, Danish Red Cross for more details.