The increasing and sustained presence of displaced people in host communities worldwide requires new approaches to assistance. One potential approach is to link humanitarian assistance with national social protection systems. Yet the implications of linking these in different ways – including for meeting people’s basic needs and wellbeing in displacement settings – are far from clear.

In this paper, we thus explore two key questions:

1. How does assistance provision affect basic needs and wellbeing outcomes in displacement settings?

2. How might these effects differ when international humanitarian assistance is linked more closely and in different ways with state social protection?

Report by the Overseas Development Institute