Shocks and crises pose significant threats to human development. These shocks—whether natural disasters, economic crises, or political upheavals—disproportionately affect poor and vulnerable households because they lack resources to prepare for, cope with, or adapt to them. Within households, women and children are the worst hit as households often resort to negative coping strategies, such as pulling children out of school, selling assets, or going hungry.

Adaptive social protection (ASP) emphasizes the role of social protection (SP) systems in supporting households and communities in preparing for, responding to, and adapting to various types of shocks. ASP emphasizes the role of SP systems—social safety nets, social insurance, and labor market programs—in protecting people’s well-being and preventing them from falling into poverty as a result of shock impacts. To do so, ASP should work alongside disaster risk management (DRM) and humanitarian assistance. While different actors have used different terminologies over time to refer to ASP, it is mostly for reasons of historical legacy rather than vastly different conceptualizations, according to the evaluation’s literature review. The concept has been referred to as “shock-responsive SP,” “risk-informed SP,” and “shock sensitive,” among others.

The World Bank Group’s approach to ASP has advanced rapidly and become a key part of its responses to shocks. The World Bank’s strategic shift from program-based to system-based approaches over the past 10 years has been central to its work on ASP. This evolution is reflected in the World Bank’s social protection and labor strategy for 2012–22 (World Bank 2012), which emphasizes system-based approaches, coordination among sectors, and strong government leadership. The strategy also notes the increasing use of noncontributory cash transfers and cash in humanitarian responses, while highlighting the risks of parallel structures emerging without sufficient government involvement. World Bank initiatives such as the Sahel Adaptive Social Protection Program (SASPP), launched in 2014; the 2018 South-South Learning Forum; the 2022 report Charting a Course Towards Universal Social Protection: Resilience, Equity, and Opportunity for All (World Bank Group 2022); and more recently the State of Social Protection Report 2025: The 2-Billion-Person Challenge (World Bank 2025) have helped inform the World Bank’s approach to ASP, focusing on building household resilience and improving the responsiveness of SP systems after a shock. In 2022, the Bank Group adopted the Global Crisis Response Framework that reinforces the importance of additional investments in ASP as integral to its operational response to the multiple overlapping crises and food insecurity.

Evaluation Purpose

The purpose of this evaluation is to assess the performance of the World Bank’s SP contributions in shock-prone countries. It covers World Bank lending operations with SP elements for countries at high risk of shocks approved during FY 2012–22. The Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) chose this period to align with the World Bank’s 2012–22 social protection and labor strategy. IEG conducted this evaluation at the request of the Board of Executive Directors to assess the relevance and effectiveness of the World Bank’s support to help country clients make their SP systems more shock responsive. The evaluation responds to the need for better crisis preparedness and system strengthening, as outlined in current World Bank strategies. It provides evidence-based insights on how operations have strengthened SP systems before crises and how adaptive elements have been integrated into operations, examines the utility of the World Bank’s ASP framework in diverse contexts, and assesses the performance of these systems in response to shocks and crises, including COVID-19. The evaluation aims to enhance learning and inform future World Bank support for ASP systems that are inclusive, efficient, and responsive to various shocks, while also fostering long-term development and social stability.

Evaluation Theory and Methods

The evaluation answers the following questions:

• To what extent has the World Bank support for ASP been relevant?
  • To what extent has the World Bank supported ASP elements in countries where vulnerability to covariate shocks is higher?
  • To what extent has the World Bank incorporated ASP elements into its SP support, and to what extent are these aligned with good practice and evidence of what works?
  • To what extent is the World Bank ASP framework a realistic model in different settings?
• How effectively has the World Bank supported ASP outcomes (timeliness and adequacy of SP response) in client countries?
  • How effective has the World Bank’s support been for ASP practices and activities?
  • What has worked to achieve successful ASP outcomes in client countries? What factors explain success, and what was the role of the World Bank?

The evaluation portfolio included all lending operations in 70 high-risk countries where the Social Protection and Labor Global Practice is either a leading or contributing Global Practice. This encompassed 202 projects and $52.6 billion in commitments approved between FY12 and FY22. Because of the nature of the catastrophe deferred drawdown option (CAT DDO), all such operations approved during the evaluation period in these high-risk countries were also included in the portfolio, regardless of the involvement of any specific Global Practice.

IEG adopted a theory-based and consultative approach to guide its assessment. IEG developed a conceptual framework (figure 1.1) based on the World Bank’s ASP framework (Smith and Bowen 2020), a structured literature review, a review of relevant IEG evaluations, and consultations with ASP experts. The evaluation team engaged with a diverse set of internal stakeholders and external players for triangulation purposes, ensuring thorough analysis, appropriate sampling, and a variety of insights on the findings. These included World Bank management, project teams, country units, technical experts, government representatives, donors, development partners, United Nations agencies, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).

Figure 1.1. Conceptual Framework

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Figure 1.1. Conceptual Framework

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Source: Independent Evaluation Group.Note: ASP = adaptive social protection; SP = social protection.

1. IEG developed a classification scheme of foundational and adaptive activities based on the World Bank’s original ASP framework. Support for ASP occurs within regular SP systems and as such is hard to delimit. While the framework helped articulate the ASP concept, the evaluation built on it to assess operationalization of it in the World Bank’s support. The process involved using the preliminary coding of the portfolio, pilot case studies, and multiple consultations with technical experts to identify areas of support relevant for ASP. The ASP framework articulates four building blocks—programs, data, finance, and institutional arrangements and partnerships—which the evaluation recast into 24 support activities grouped in seven clusters. These clusters reflect the common types of activities found in the World Bank’s support to social assistance (table 1.1). IEG used this classification to distinguish among the following:
2. Foundational activities that support the core SP system and are only focused on the delivery of the regular SP program (reflecting preparedness).
3. Adaptive activities that focus only on the use of SP as a shock response and would not be necessary for the delivery of the regular SP program.

Dual-use, both foundational and adaptive, activities that support elements of the SP system that are useful and necessary for the delivery of the regular SP program and the use of SP as a shock response. This is a large category because strong foundations are key for systems’ ability to adapt and respond to shocks.

Table 1.1. Cluster Framework

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Table 1.1. Cluster Framework

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Source: Independent Evaluation Group.

Note: * (green) = foundational activities; † (red) = adaptive activities; ‡ (yellow) = both foundational and adaptive, or dual-use, activities; § (black) = activity is not part of the ASP framework. ASP = adaptive social protection.

IEG used a mixed methods approach to answer the evaluation questions at the global, portfolio, and country levels:

• At the global level, the evaluation team conducted a structured literature review to identify best practices in ASP and compare them with World Bank strategies. They also interviewed World Bank staff and global experts.
• At the portfolio level, the team carried out a systematic analysis of 202 lending projects in 67 high-risk countries, totaling $52.6 billion in commitments. They also analyzed 189 advisory services and analytics (ASA) projects amounting to $184 million. The analysis aimed to categorize World Bank support into clusters, identify factors affecting the effective delivery of shock responses, and assess the extent to which key outcomes of interests are measured at the project level.
• At the country level, the team conducted 11 country case studies, 6 of which involved field visits. The case studies considered various types of shocks and the maturity of SP systems to assess the World Bank’s support for preparedness and shock response. Additionally, the evaluation team conducted a targeted regional review of SASPP.

The evaluation faced some evidence limitations. First, the evaluation primarily focused on social assistance programs, in particular cash transfers. This is in line with the World Bank’s ASP framework and the bulk of its efforts during the evaluation period but limited the evaluation’s ability to compare the relative effectiveness of different types of shock responses, such as social assistance, social insurance, and in-kind assistance. The evaluation focused on shock responses rather than SP’s role in helping households exit poverty and build long-term resilience as shown in figure 1.1. Second, existing tools and indexes used to assess SP system maturity and risk levels are imprecise, with incomplete databases and a limited ability to make valid cross-country comparisons. The evaluation addressed this issue by complementing the Atlas of Social Protection Indicators of Resilience and Equity data set with data from the World Bank’s stress tests of country systems. Third, the evaluation often depended on self-reported activities in project documents—that is, unreported activities often could not be captured in the analysis. Last, the evaluation’s scoping primarily included projects led or co-led by the Social Protection and Labor Global Practice, which may have resulted in underreporting activities related to the cluster on predictable or preplanned financing, as such initiatives are often led by other Global Practices within the World Bank.

Evaluation Message and Outline

Overall, this evaluation finds that the World Bank contributed to making SP systems more adaptive to shocks, but the performance of these systems during shocks was often inadequate because of limited financing, political economy challenges, and institutional shortcomings.

Chapter 2 reviews the World Bank’s contributions to strengthening SP systems and making them more adaptive to shocks. Chapter 3 assesses the performance of the World Bank–supported SP systems during shocks. Chapter 4 reviews the challenges that undermined the World Bank’s ASP efforts and the factors that explain their successes. Chapter 5 concludes and recommends actions to strengthen the World Bank’s support for ASP.