Transforming social protection for irreversible climate change-induced loss and damage: key roles for philanthropy

This briefing paper examines the role of social protection in responding to irreversible loss and damage among populations approaching or exceeding the limits of adaptation and highlights potential pathways for transforming these systems. Recognising the potential of philanthropy to support climate-responsive social protection, the briefing also explores the role and entry points for philanthropies in enabling these transformations.

Key findings:

Responding to irreversible loss and damage will require social protection to evolve along pathways that reflect permanent change, including supporting human mobility and relocation and enabling livelihood transition and transformation. Philanthropies can support these transformations in social protection in several key ways.

• Piloting innovation: Supporting integrated social protection models, including new participatory, community‑driven approaches to assisted relocation and cash-plus approaches linking social protection to livelihood transformation.
• Technical support: Financing applied research and context-specific evidence generation to inform programme design and facilitate learning among stakeholders, including research on lived experiences of climate-related mobility at the local level.
• Advocacy: Advancing politically sensitive dialogue that positions social protection as a rights-based mechanism, ensuring predictable support that upholds income security, access to services, and dignity in the face of permanent change.
• Philanthropies are not expected to fill financing gaps or replace state obligations in providing social protection: However, they have distinct advantages that could help enable transformations and create the conditions for more durable, rights-based responses needed to meet the complex challenges of irreversible loss and damage.