One of the primary objectives of social protection is to help households cope with adverse events. These include shocks that affect entire communities, or large parts of the population at the same time, known as covariate shocks (examples include economic crises, disasters associated with extreme weather and climate events, and conflict-related crises). 

As the frequency and intensity of a range of covariate shocks look set to increase, it is critical to understand the policy options that enable effective social protection shock response and provide tools to support policy makers in improving shock response preparedness.  

• the social protection policy design and implementation details that facilitate adequate shock response;
  
• the readiness of social protection systems, institutions and policies to respond to different types of covariate shocks.

See our working papers, briefings, toolkit, workshop and other outputs carried out to date.