Leaving No One Behind: Why Adaptive Social Protection Must Be Gender-Responsive and Inclusive

Dec 16, 2025 | Nohelia Palou and Dr. Charlotte Penel

As the world grapples with a convergence of crises, from the urgent threats of climate extremes and pandemics to the long-term challenges of economic shocks and social unrest, traditional social protection systems are being pushed beyond their limits. These systems, initially designed for predictable risks and cyclical poverty, are now struggling to cope with today’s complex web of climate-driven and compounding shocks that continuously reshape livelihoods.

This is where Adaptive Social Protection (ASP) comes in: a framework that integrates social protection, climate change adaptation, and disaster risk reduction to help households and communities prepare for, cope with, and adapt to shocks and slow-onset events.

However, adaptation cannot be achieved through technical design alone. To be truly transformative, ASP must be built through a Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) lens, recognizing that shocks are not equal, and neither are people’s capacities to respond.

Crises, whether climatic, economic, or health-related, interact with existing inequalities. Women, indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities, seniors, and other marginalized groups often experience greater exposure to risks, higher sensitivity to their impacts, and fewer opportunities to recover.

Marginalized groups are more likely to live in hazard-prone or ecologically fragile areas due to limited livelihood options and historical displacement. Women and girls take on increased unpaid care work during crises and face higher risks of gender-based violence. Indigenous peoples often depend on climate-sensitive livelihoods but face barriers to land tenure and inclusion in state programs. These same groups typically have less access to credit, technology, mobility, and decision-making spaces. When institutional responses are weak or non-inclusive, their vulnerabilities become entrenched.

In short, adaptive capacity is social as much as it is technical. Systems that fail to address inequality will reproduce it, even under the banner of resilience.

Shocks through a gender lens: the case of Honduras

Honduras is developing a national Adaptive Social Protection (ASP) policy led by the Ministry of Social Development (SEDESOL). A participatory diagnosis across 15 municipalities revealed that communities face multiple, overlapping risks, from recurrent floods and droughts to economic shocks and displacement. Women and indigenous groups often experience the heaviest burdens.

The findings were clear: climate and socioeconomic shocks are not gender neutral. They intersect with pre-existing inequalities to produce distinct vulnerabilities and coping capacities. In particular, there were four main findings illustrating how gender and intersectionality determine the degree of vulnerability and resilience to these shocks: 

• Women and girls face heightened exposure to gender-based violence (GBV) in emergency shelters, often lacking access to menstrual and reproductive health services. The loss of jobs in maquilas (garment factories) and increased unpaid care burdens further undermine their economic independence.
• Men, meanwhile, are often expected to stay behind during evacuations to protect assets, a reflection of gender norms that increases their exposure to floods, landslides, and violence.
• LGBTIQ+ people and persons with disabilities experience distinct challenges during displacement, including exposure to discrimination, violence, and inadequate protection. Limited accessibility and non-inclusive communication often restrict their access to aid and information. The disruption of support networks further heightens their vulnerability and recovery barriers.
• At the same time, many local emergency committees (CODELES) are led by women who play a key role in community preparedness, coordination, and recovery efforts, which showcases how women are also climate leaders, playing a key role in strengthening climate resilience 

The Triple Mandate of ASP

ASP rests on three interlinked functions, each of which must be inclusive by design:

1. Prepare: Anticipate shocks through early warning systems, data-driven targeting, and investments in community preparedness.
2. Cope: Provide timely, accessible, and dignified assistance (cash transfers, public works, or services) that meet diverse needs during crises.
3. Adapt: Strengthen long-term resilience through diversified livelihoods, climate-smart agriculture, and access to education, land, and assets.

Crucially, this triple mandate must extend beyond rapid-onset disasters to slow-onset events such as drought, soil degradation, or gradual loss of biodiversity, processes that erode resilience silently over time.

From Local Voices to Policy Solutions

The participatory process did more than identify problems; it produced a set of locally grounded, gender-sensitive ASP strategies that combine social protection mechanisms with climate resilience.

Some of the proposed measures include:

• Shelter preparedness should include gender-sensitive supplies, such as menstrual hygiene kits, diapers, and post-violence care materials, to ensure that diverse needs are met during crises. This also includes conditional cash transfers linked to community dengue prevention activities, recognizing women’s role in health and care networks.
• Provision of school materials to ensure boys and girls from low-income or displaced families can continue their studies after extreme weather events. 
  Seed capital and training for people who have lost their jobs, with a focus on women-led businesses and youth entrepreneurship.
• Gender-responsive temporary employment programs to rehabilitate flood-prone areas, clean drainage systems, and restore public spaces, prioritising female heads of households, unemployed youth, small farmers and other informal workers affected by emergencies and disasters.
• Food programs for smallholder farmers conditioned on sustainable agriculture practices and climate adaptation that enhance food security could also include the adjustment of food menus to meet the specific nutritional needs of vulnerable groups such as children, pregnant women, older adults, and people with chronic diseases.
• Scholarships for technical training in community health, psychology, environmental management, and citizen oversight — strengthening leadership capacities at the local level.
• Strengthening rural savings banks (cajas rurales) as instruments of adaptive protection, enabling women, smallholder farmers and informal workers to have equitable access to contingency funds and accessible credit for diversified livelihoods.

These community-led proposals illustrate how adaptive social protection can move from theory to practice when local voices and gender perspectives drive the design of interventions.

By anchoring ASP in social equity, governments can ensure that the most vulnerable are not only protected from shocks but also empowered to shape their own recovery and adaptation pathways.

In the words of one community leader from the consultations:

“We have faced floods and displacement. However, what keeps us standing is organization, especially women’s organizations. If support comes through us, we know how to reach everyone.”

The world’s climate and social protection agendas are converging. However, resilience cannot be built on exclusion. ASP offers a way forward, not just to shield populations from crisis, but to transform the systems that perpetuate vulnerability. Designing ASP through a gender and social inclusion lens ensures that resilience is both just and sustainable, because leaving no one behind is not just a goal; it is the measure of true adaptation.

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Nohelia Palou is a researcher in climate, peace, security, and gender and is part of the CGIAR Climate Security team.

Dr. Charlotte Penel is a researcher in climate, peace, security, and gender and is part of the CGIAR Climate Security team.