Building resilient futures: coordinating social protection amid crises in the Sahel

In the Sahel, the need for social protection has never been more urgent. Countries in the region have long grappled with extreme poverty and untapped human capital. Now, as crises and shocks intensify — driven by conflict, fragility, climate change, health emergencies, and economic disruptions — millions face an escalating cycle of vulnerability. For those most at risk, it is becoming harder — and costlier — to cope, recover, and rebuild after each shock, threatening hard-won gains in livelihoods, health, and education.

Social protection is one of the most strategic and cost-effective tools to tackle these complex and interconnected challenges. Evidence from the Sahel and beyond shows that social protection is an impactful investment in resilience, human capital, productivity, and social cohesion. In times of crises, it ensures support continues to reach the most vulnerable. Beyond this, strong national systems are essential to meet shifting or growing needs, protecting the most vulnerable and gradually building their resilience, and ultimately reducing the costs of repeated humanitarian responses, especially for overlapping or cyclical shocks.

But, despite progress, national safety net programs in Sahelian countries, where they exist, still reach fewer than 1 in 10 people, restraining their ability to tackle poverty and vulnerability or expand temporarily during crises. What’s more, not all programs are nationally led and funded, with many still financed by development partner projects. Many governments allocate limited budgets to social protection, and a reliance on external financing jeopardizes the sustainability and predictability of these vital interventions. Indeed, while countries have made significant strides in establishing national social protection systems — even in fragile contexts — sustaining this momentum is essential for their expansion and sustainability.

Unlocking the transformative potential of social protection in the Sahel demands strong coordination of all actors under national leadership. But there is a catch: the landscape is fragmented, with limited coverage and numerous actors, leading to gaps and duplications in assistance. Government ministries and agencies, nongovernmental actors, development partners, and regional platforms all operate simultaneously, often with overlapping mandates and sometimes divergent objectives. This complexity makes effective coordination crucial to accelerate impact, enhance efficiency and equity, ensure more timely shock responses, and enable synergies across programs and sectors.

Coordination in crises contexts is more than just aligning delivery. It also means designing and delivering support that reinforces national social protection systems, ensuring they can sustainably boost resilience over the long term. This calls for a forward-thinking approach — meeting immediate needs quickly and at scale, while strengthening the capacity and coherence of national systems for the future.

In response to these challenges, UNICEF, the World Bank, and the World Food Programme (WFP) have jointly identified practical approaches for strengthening coordination within and across policy, program, and delivery levels in the Sahel. Building on a rich collaboration in the region, these efforts aim to enhance delivery while also strengthening systems for the sustainable delivery of social protection.

Invest in national leadership capacity. Government leadership at all levels is the crux of effective coordination. But leadership capacity takes time and commitment. It requires actors to converge support for establishing or strengthening robust national and sub-national coordination mechanisms that bring together government, humanitarian, social protection, and cross-sectoral representatives.

Align under a shared national vision. Strong policy frameworks create common objectives behind which all actors can align. This starts with converging support for governments to develop national social protection policies and strategies and then aligning efforts on these shared foundations once they are in place. But it doesn’t stop here. Integrating social protection into related sectors, from agriculture to health, education, nutrition, and disaster risk management also fosters greater coherence, leverages synergies, and more holistically addresses the complex drivers of vulnerability.

Foster trust. Promoting mutual understanding and learning across approaches is crucial to enhance transparency and strengthen political and public support for social protection. Different actors must create common ground on issues and priorities, including through joint diagnostics and sectoral reviews. Closing the loop, lessons learned should feed back into government strategies and planning.

Pool resources and promote multi-year funding. Pooling critical resources and ensuring funding and benefits support national priorities reduces duplication and fragmentation, enhances efficiency and coherence, and strengthens national leadership. Complementing this, predictable, multi-year financing also supports consistent investment in, and strengthening, of national systems over time — including through domestic budget allocations.

Invest in shared systems. For national social protection systems to become sustainable, they must be strengthened. This can only happen when partners ensure support is channelled to and through them, investing in shared instruments — from social registries to payment and monitoring mechanisms — that all actors can use and help reinforce.

Establish permanent, national social safety net programs. Enduring programs — like Mauritania’s Tekavoul program — that can be scaled up during shocks and sustained over time, especially those with an explicit ambition to achieve national coverage, are critical to foster convergence and prevent multiple fragmented projects. 

Through collective action, the promise of social protection can be realized in the Sahel. Governments must set the agenda and lead the systems, with partners supporting — not supplanting — them. The path forward calls for a fundamental shift in how partners operate: prioritizing national ownership, aligning interventions with a shared national vision, and strengthening national systems that are adaptive, inclusive, and sustainable. Together, we can protect the most vulnerable today and build resilient futures – during and despite crises.