Towards Adaptive Social Protection in Romania (English)

This report presents results from the assessment of the capacity of Romania’s social protection system to prevent, reduce, and respond adequately to disaster-related shocks. It assesses the shock adaptability and resilience of the social protection system and proposes measures to strengthen them for the government of Romania. The assessment is part of a broader World Bank study that includes Bulgaria, North Macedonia, and Albania and applies a tool specifically developed by the World Bank to evaluate how adaptable and scalable a social protection system is to varying shocks. Natural disasters and the impact of climate change have and continue to disproportionally affect poor and vulnerable people in countries worldwide. The countries of the World Bank Europe and Central Asia Region are not an exception. Poor and vulnerable people are most affected by shock events with long-lasting impacts that diminish gains in human capital and poverty reduction. Empirical evidence worldwide suggests that socio-economic status significantly impacts households' ability to cope with and recover from shocks. To minimize the impact of sudden, covariate shocks, such as earthquakes, floods, or draughts, on people’s welfare and to protect their human capital, a more robust disaster risk management and resilient health, education, and social protection systems are needed. In this report, the authors focus on social protection.