Second World Summit for Social Development

Poverty Reduction and Climate Resilience: Achieving Both Simultaneously

6 November 2025, 13.15, Qatar National Convention Centre, Room 11

Organized by: Government of Zambia, Ministry of Community Development and Social Services and Institute of Development Studies, UK

Background

The objective was to show how poverty reduction and climate resilience are intimately connected and should be addressed through programs and policies simultaneously, and to suggest that this is an excellent focus for climate adaptation work going forwards from the Brazil COP. The solutions event was a reflection on a regional conference in Lusaka on the topic in May held by the organizing partners.

Key Issues discussed

Zambia’s Minister for Community Development and Social Services (MCDSS), the Honourable Doreen Sefuke Mwamba emphasised the expansion of social protection, the provision of business skills and development of climate smart agriculture as the foundations for inclusive growth, or growth from below, and Zambia’s willingness to  champion this agenda globally.

Vidya Diwakar (IDS) reported that resilience to climate and other hazards (the ability to bounce back or recover from a shock) is generally achieved at relatively high levels of welfare; the question for us all is how can that resilience be strengthened at lower levels of welfare – for the poor and vulnerable nonpoor.

The need to prevent impoverishment was reemphasized by Fernanda Pavez Esbry (UNDESA) who reported on the World Social Report 2025, which highlighted the many people falling temporarily into poverty in an insecure world where people struggle to achieve and hope, and where minor setbacks can impoverish. 3 billion people are in the category of vulnerable non-poor, when poverty is measured at the U.S.$ 3 per person per day level. Many of these live in fragile and conflict affected situations, where achieving sustained peace should be part of any initiative to end poverty or build resilience. The World Social Report brought to the table by Fernanda Pavez Esbry (UNDESA) emphasised governance (capacity, financing, social cohesion and trust) and institutional development as important parts of the poverty and vulnerability reduction story – something reaffirmed in several other presentations.

Building climate resilience for those at the bottom of the income distribution depends on the layering of measures to enable people to escape poverty; and then on a raft of complementary measures: in particular, according to Adiya Bahadur, Director of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Climate Centre,  anticipatory actions especially early warning systems to protect lives and food security, and expanded support for people’s strategies to remain out of poverty. Knowing where the hotspots of climate-related shocks and extreme poverty are located would then help pre-position assets and resources to assist preventive action. Resilient health systems including mental health services are also a central aspect of keeping people out of poverty, a fact acknowledged by the Government of Zambia’s linking of health insurance to social cash transfers.

Climate and other risks can be cross-border, and so regional co-ordination so that neighbouring countries responses are coherent and mutually supportive are an essential part of anticipatory actions, according to Cleopas Sambo at the University of Zambia. Institutional co-ordination more broadly is a condition for simultaneous work on poverty reduction and climate resilience. An example of this, according to Jules Rutebuka was establishment Rwanda’s Green Fund since 2012, which had coordinated national green investments in Rwanda to support implementing agencies including the decentralised entities (Districts). The districts had set up a financing approach which linked the environmental conservation interventions with  Rwanda’s Vision Umurenge (public works and cash transfers) Programme (VUP) for generating incomes to poor people and job creation.

Cleopas Sambo, Jules Rutebuka from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), based in Kigali and Alice Menya from Nuvoni National Centre for Innovation Research (Nairobi) all emphased the importance of bringing poor and vulnerable people’s voices to the table to co-create solutions which will work. Governments need to think less about getting back into power (the ‘choiceless democracy’ concept of Thanda Mkandawire) and listen more to the people they are meant to serve. Co-creation involves the merging of people’s knowledge with science. Rwanda provided an example of including people’s voices into village Land Use and Action plans (VLUAP) for landscape management, which was accompanied by strengthening Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs). It also acknowledges the importance of scaling down and varying actions to take account of social and ecological niches. Thus, “Where we, the people, shape the land and the land shapes us  and it lies in the vital nexus between people and nature,” said Jules Rutebuka.

Alice Menya complemented the strong rural focus with a call for transformative partnerships, for example, between central and local government, the private sector, civil society organisations, local actors, and researchers to develop localised, multi-sector solutions in urban spaces, to increasing the productivity of the millions of informal enterprises through training, safety nets, financial services and improved work environments. Where there is a potential for ‘green jobs’, localised climate finance on the model of Kenya’s FLLoCCA programme is capable of reaching people, unlike much of the more centralised climate finance.

Achieving poverty reduction and climate resilience simultaneously will become an important priority for governments and other actors, as climate change is increasingly an obstacle to poverty reduction, and resilience cannot be achieved without poverty reduction, as mentioned by Aditya Bahadur. A worthy focus for climate adaptation funding.

Key recommendations for action / commitments for the Doha Solutions Platform for Social Development

  • The importance of layered interventions building on social cash transfers to support people out of poverty, and the need to prevent impoverishment through insurance and macro-economic (inflation and crisis) management. In many countries, however, mobilizing insurance companies and international risk management institutions for preventive actions is at an early stage, and needs to be helped along by significant state involvement and investment upfront.

  • Building co-ordinated cross-sectoral and cross-ministerial solutions as a consequence of adopting a cash + approach as well as the operational challenges faced in strengthening the institutional foundations for expanded social protection. Rwanda provides an example of co-ordinated action: linking social protection with environmental conservation programming.

  • Acknowledge the important fiscal constraints currently faced by many countries: government’s choices are fiscally constrained and need to be carefully weighed. Developing a financial sustainability strategy for relevant policies and interventions is essential.

  • Anticipatory actions are critical especially early warning systems to protect lives and food security, and expanded support for people’s strategies to remain out of poverty. Knowing where the hotspots of climate-related shocks and extreme poverty are located would then help pre-position assets and resources to assist preventive action. Resilient health systems including mental health services are also a central aspect of keeping people out of poverty.

  • Tackle climate resilience and poverty reduction simultaneously, using the lessons from decades of poverty reduction work, and of more recent work on building climate resilience, much of which is now through livelihoods development.

Learn more

Where are we on the road to zero poverty? Reflections from CPAN Associates in East and Southern Africa

The International Day for the Eradication of Poverty is upon us once more, with renewed urgency to reinvigorate action to get to zero poverty. Below, select CPAN Associates provide high level reflections, part of an ongoing discussion of how realistic this goal remains in regions of sub-Saharan Africa.

Fighting extreme poverty remains an uphill task in southern Africa

By Blessings Chinsinga

Extreme poverty remains widespread, deep and severe in southern Africa. Estimates pre-pandemic found that that 88 million people (about 45.1% of the population) lived in extreme poverty. It is moreover estimated that over 40 million more people are expected to face extreme poverty by 2040.

Most countries in the region have not been able to create institutional and social foundations for structural changes to facilitate transformative and sustainable development. On top of this, Covid-19 has had a devastating impact on southern African economies leading to rising poverty, inequality and unemployment. Lack of economic diversification is slowing down the recovery process, especially since commodities play a disproportionate role in most of these economies.

Recovery efforts have been further hampered by a litany of adverse climatic episodes including severe droughts, heavy rains and flash flooding. Some countries have endured successive bouts of cyclones (for example, cyclone Ana, Idai and Freddy) with devastating impacts on their agricultural sectors as well as their basic infrastructure. The Russian-Ukraine war has simply exacerbated the situation. Fertilizers are no longer affordable to most farmers, further crippling the predominantly agrarian economies in the region. The war has also had a negative impact on the prices of various basic commodities worsening the living standards of many people in the region.

Several strategies could potentially reverse southern Africa’s pessimistic outlook on its efforts to eradicate extreme poverty. Robust social protection programmes, especially social cash transfers, are proving effective in changing and diversifying livelihood opportunities of its participants.

Alongside this, agricultural support programmes could play a vital role in the recovery efforts especially for countries reeling from successive bouts of cyclones or droughts. Job creation more broadly, especially through climate smart interventions including those targeting youth, could help support the region’s efforts to adapt to the adverse effects of climate change.

Achievement of substantive gender equality must be central to all policies and programmes by dealing with impediments that limit the economic independence and security of women.

All these efforts require reconfiguring the state to serve as a vehicle for meaningful development and sustainable structural transformation. Through decentralization policy reforms, widely adopted in the region, efforts must be made to genuinely empower people in poverty to play an active part in designing and implementing programmes that are meant to benefit them.

For more on CPAN policy recommendations to get to zero poverty in southern Africa, see:

Microeconomic support for poverty eradication in East Africa, with a focus on Ethiopia and Tanzania

By Judith Kahamba and Yisak Tafere

The successive and multiple crises overlaying structural challenges have deterred East Africa’s promising economic growth. Drought and the COVID-19 pandemic hit Tanzania and Ethiopia hard in the last years. In Ethiopia, the war in Tigray and more recent devaluation of the national currency following the Foreign Exchange Directive has amplified challenges. Tanzanians face various dimensions of vulnerability to poverty on account of climate-related crises and health shocks on the back of weak structural economic transformation, low education levels, limited growth elasticity of poverty and limited public spending on sectors critical for people in and near poverty such as agriculture and health.

The impact of these crises and stressors on poverty reduction has been visible. For example, between 2015 and 2022, absolute poverty and income inequality has increased in Ethiopia. In Tanzania, strong growth has not consistently translated into poverty reduction.

So, what can be done amidst these challenges? In both countries, the governments have implemented various policies and strategies to reduce poverty. With regards to social protection Ethiopia's Productive Safety Net Program is hailed as one of the most ambitious social protection programmes on the continent. The Tanzania Social Action Fund’s Conditional Cash Transfer and Productive Social Safety Nets also seek to reduce extreme poverty through cash transfers to vulnerable populations.

Continued and increased investment in productive social safety net programs is still crucial in reducing vulnerability to extreme poverty. Reversing external cutbacks will be needed in contexts where international assistance has considerably supported country poverty reduction strategies.

Alongside this, a host of complementary measures are needed. This includes increasing public expenditure on agriculture to improve access to production inputs, irrigation technologies, better infrastructure, and market linkages, as well as proper coordination of the private actors along the key crop, livestock and fisheries value chains. Engagement of the private sector needs to promote climate smart agriculture to overcome the challenge of weather vulnerability in both countries.

With a larger population in the informal sector, the government also needs to invest in human capital and skills development and create a better enabling environment that fosters small enterprises to grow and survive, such as reasonable business taxes and promoting favorable microfinance services to reduce informal sector actors’ vulnerabilities to poverty, especially during external shocks.

For more on CPAN policy recommendations to get to zero poverty in East Africa, see:

Renewing the commitment to social protection in sub-Saharan Africa

By Adeniran Adedeji

Sound macroeconomic stability, debt relief, rising commodity prices, strong global market demand, and favourable trade policies helped some sub-Saharan African countries reduce their poverty rates pre-pandemic. However, poverty reduction was already stalling in many countries prior to COVID-19. Key economic fundamentals in the region have since deteriorated along these metrics, and addressing the root causes of stagnant growth will be critical to reversing the negative poverty trajectory.

To make meaningful progress, additional tools for poverty reduction are necessary. A structured social protection framework could be one of the missing pieces in the policy toolkit, as reinforced above. Historically, social protection in the region has been fragmented, largely donor-driven, and lacked proper targeting mechanisms. The weaknesses in social transfer programs became apparent during the shocks of COVID-19.

However, the pandemic also served as a catalyst for revamping social protection programs across the subcontinent, with many countries introducing social registries and establishing institutional frameworks for social protection. Scaling up these efforts, coordinating social protection initiatives, and enhancing the role of key actors in funding and policy coordination will be crucial for sustained progress in poverty reduction.

Revamping the social protection delivery mechanism is also crucial. Digital technologies can support mapping the vulnerable groups and better targeting of the poor. Innovations that reduce leakages and improve the efficiency of social transfers will be needed in fighting corruption effectively.

For more on CPAN policy recommendations centred on social protection, see: