The Politics of Donor and Government Approaches to Social Protection and Humanitarian Policies for Assistance During Crises

This paper examines social protection policy processes in fragile and conflict-affected settings (FCAS). It explores what the policies of donor governments, aid agencies, and crisis-affected governments reveal about the politics of assistance during crises, and how aid agencies are navigating tensions between humanitarian and development approaches to social assistance. It finds that social protection policies are prone to conflict blindness. Commitments to state-building often ignore dilemmas inherent in supporting states that are parties to ongoing conflicts and the political rather than technical challenges involved. Government social protection policies in FCAS often make little mention of the fact that war or conflict are taking place.