Harnessing informal institutions to strengthen social protection for the rural poor

Social protection has emerged as an effective policy response to tackle food insecurity, increase agricultural productivity and promote rural development across the developing world. Despite the proliferation of social protection programmes, their coverage is still low and informal support systems continue to be the key means of protection for the majority of the rural poor and vulnerable. Although their significance has remained largely invisible in policy and programming, there is growing interest to explore their potential and to support linkages with formal programmes. This article reviews the main types of informal social protection with their strengths and weaknesses, identifies their linkages to formal social protection, and proposes ways to strengthen them for more robust and inclusive social protection systems.