The use of social protection in emergencies has increased rapidly over the past few years. Innovative programming, implementation and financing mechanisms have allowed social protection programmes to evolve and adapt to both prepare for, and respond to, large-scale emergencies.

Over the past two decades, growing attention has also been paid to the role that social protection can play in promoting gender equality and women and girls’ empowerment throughout the course of their lives. At the same time, increased recognition of the gendered impacts of crises has led to more gender-responsive humanitarian interventions.

However, to date, there has been limited use of systematic evidence to inform shock-sensitive social protection policy and programming with a gender lens, and the two sectors have remained siloed, despite the significant overlaps and potential for lesson-learning.

This working paper looks at the core components of gender-responsive social protection programming in non-crisis contexts. 

Report by the Overseas Development Institute