Social Protection

Social Protection


Millions of people around the world struggle to afford minimally nutritious diets. GAIN is supporting social protection programmes that are nutrition-sensitive and that have the potential to improve livelihoods.

For many of the world's poorest people, adequately nutritious diets remain out of reach. For these individuals, social protection programmes are critically important for bridging inequity gaps and enabling access to safe, nutritious foods. Through partnerships, policy advocacy, and programmes, GAIN is supporting efforts to make social protection more nutrition-sensitive and better equipped to combat systemic and intergenerational inequities that limit the reach of vital services. 

GAIN's social protection work is currently targeting the following key themes:

  • Supporting government partners to identify opportunities to make social protection programmes more nutrition-sensitive
  • Promoting the inclusion of nutrient-dense, fortified, and biofortified foods in social protection programmes
  • Using participatory research and human-centred design principles to ensure that social protection is sensitive to and targeted toward the nutritional needs of particularly vulnerable populations, primarily women, adolescent girls, and those living in extreme poverty 
  • Empowering beneficiaries to achieve maximal nutritional value from their social protection benefits through social and behaviour change communication
  • Exploring innovative pathways to improve livelihoods through social protection by creating economic empowerment opportunities for marginalized communities.