Context

Climate change is projected to drive 100 million more people into extreme poverty, an additional 130 million people into chronic hunger and result in global loss of 72 million full-time jobs by 2030. Furthermore, water scarcity could affect up to 3.2 billion people and 250 million people could be displaced internally by 2050. Least Developed Countries (LDCs), Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDCs), and Fragile and Conflict-Affected States (FCAS) are particularly vulnerable, grappling with recurring droughts, floods, and heatwaves that devastate agriculture - a lifeline for food security and livelihoods. In Somalia, an FCAS, prolonged droughts have triggered famine risks, while debt burdens limit government capacity to respond, leaving millions food insecure. LLDCs like Nepal face geographic isolation, raising food import costs, while LDCs like Malawi see crop failures exacerbate malnutrition. Social protection, already reaching 45% of the global population with at least one benefit, offers a vital shield, stabilising incomes, improving nutrition, and ensuring food access during crises. Anticipatory systems, such as cash transfers, food aid and livelihood support triggered by early warnings, and shock-responsive mechanisms, like scalable support post-disaster, are highly effective, with evidence showing every $1 invested saves up to $15 in recovery costs and protects food systems. Yet, implementation lags due to weak early warning systems, poor targeting data, and severe financing constraints—often covering less than half the population in emergencies, and far fewer in FCAS where conflict disrupts delivery. Many countries are making efforts towards bridging these gaps through innovative financing mechanisms like designing insurance pre-payout mechanism to pay out during crisis, developing contingency funds.

The Fund for Responding to Loss & Damage (FRLD) can support scale up of these efforts by addressing existing gaps by funding proactive and reactive measures for existing social protection programmes to enhance climate resilience, secure food and livelihoods. Country/ National platforms, as locally led coordination hubs, can integrate climate finance, social protection, and food security efforts, while mechanisms like Debt Sustainability Support Service (DSSS) alleviates debt pressures, redirecting resources to resilience and nutrition programs. Philanthropies, such as the Climate works, CECG, Rockefeller, CIFF, Gates Foundation, can bridge financing gaps and support innovation, working alongside governments to scale programs, development banks like the World Bank and ADB to provide large-scale funding, and local NGOs to ensure community level delivery. This event will share grounded evidence from 10 countries and 30 programmes across these vulnerable regions on what is working, how and what can be done to scale up these efforts.

Purpose and Objectives of the Side Event

1. Social Protection as a resilience and food security solution: Demonstrate how anticipatory and shock-responsive social protection builds resilience and ensures food security in LDCs, LLDCs, and FCAS, using evidence from Somalia’s drought response, Mali’s flood recovery, and the ASPIRE toolkit’s analysis of 24 programs across eight countries.

2. Highlight FRLD's role: Show how the FRLD can enhance these efforts by funding pre-emptive and longer term resilience interventions to protect livelihoods and food access in FCAS, LDCs, and LLDCs.

3. Position national platforms as coordination hubs: Explore how national platforms, with a programmatic approach, coordinate FRLD resources, social protection, and local food security priorities across these regions.

4. Leverage DSSS for Financing: Illustrate how DSSS creates fiscal space by addressing debt distress, enabling investments in social protection and food systems, as recognized in FFD4.

5. Launch the paper ‘From conflict to resilience: Tackling climate, debt and food insecurity in Somalia’ to highlight the interconnected challenges and solutions, generating practical recommendations for stakeholders to scale these integrated approaches collaboratively.

Proposed Agenda and Format

1. Introduction and welcome (5 min)

2. Keynote Addresses (10 min): Government of Somalia and World Bank representatives on the triple crisis in LDCs, LLDCs, and FCAS, emphasising food security and the roles of diverse stakeholders—governments leading policy, philanthropies funding innovation, and local actors ensuring reach.

3. Paper Launch: Release of ‘From conflict to resilience: Tackling climate, debt and food insecurity in Somalia’

4. Evidence presentation (15 min): Somalia and Mali case studies on social protection addressing climate shocks and food insecurity and ASPIRE toolkit findings from 24 programs across eight countries (e.g., Malawi, Bangladesh), identifying gaps and scalable models.

5. Roundtable discussion (60 min):

1. How anticipatory and shock-responsive systems ensure resilience and food security, with cost-benefit evidence and philanthropies’ role in scaling pilots.

2. FRLD’s role in funding resilience focused social protection (e.g., pre-shock aid, post-crisis recovery), supported by development banks’ technical expertise.

3. National Platforms as hubs for coordinating and leveraging resilience and food security investment, with DSSS financing easing debt constraints, and NGOs ensuring last-mile delivery.

   Participants: Finance ministers from LDCs/LLDCs/FCAS, FRLD Board member, World Bank representative, Philanthropies and funding agencies, Development banks and network organisations of IFIs, Insurance sector representatives, Network and UN organisations, National NGOs and think tanks,

6. Way forward(10 min): Key takeaways and next steps, linking to FRLD and FFD4 processes, with stakeholder roles clarified—philanthropies as funders, governments as implementers, and communities as drivers.

7. Networking reception