Indonesia is highly vulnerable to climate hazards, ranking 10th globally for natural hazard exposure. The country faces both sudden shocks, such as floods and landslides, and slow-onset stressors like rising sea levels and changing rainfall patterns. These environmental shifts threaten food security, health, and economic stability, with the poorest households often residing in the most hazard-prone areas. While Indonesia has a robust social assistance pillar, traditional systems are designed primarily for idiosyncratic life-cycle risks (e.g., old age, illness) rather than covariate climate shocks that affect large populations simultaneously. There is an urgent need to transition towards an Adaptive Social Protection (ASP) system that not only copes with disasters but proactively builds adaptive capacity.

To address these compounding challenges, SPRI Global supported UNICEF Indonesia in developing a Concept Note for Climate-Responsible, Child-Friendly Social Protection. This assignment aims to bridge the gap between disaster risk management and social policy, moving beyond short-term relief to long-term resilience. The project outlines strategies to integrate climate adaptation and mitigation into the national social protection system, ensuring it is robust enough to protect vulnerable populations—particularly children—against the compounding effects of climate change. The primary objective is to move the national social protection system beyond reactive responses to shocks, integrating proactive measures for climate adaptation and mitigation.

Using a comprehensive literature review and gap analysis, the team is assessing how existing programmes, such as the Program Keluarga Harapan (PKH), can be leveraged to build long-term resilience. Further objectives include:

• Developing a comprehensive framework for integrating climate resilience into the social protection system, ensuring it remains child-sensitive.
• Conducting a gap analysis to identify key areas for intervention within existing programmes and potential partnerships.
• Proposing actionable recommendations for policy and programme development, including a roadmap for implementation. A roadmap for implementation should outline specific interventions, such as “Cash Plus” incentives for clean cooking transitions and support for climate-smart agriculture.

These findings will inform policy advocacy and programming to ensure Indonesia’s social safety nets effectively protect families against both sudden disasters and slow-onset environmental hazards.