Get Ready: What Lessons for Social Protection from the Recent Energy Crisis ?

Ugo Gentilini

No 11454, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: Over March-May 2026, the world faced what was defined as “the biggest energy crisis in history.” How did countries respond to such challenge? To what extent were social protection systems scaled up, and if not so, why? The paper offers three main contributions: it codifies global social protection responses in 2026 and compares them to measures mitigating economic crises in 2008, 2020, and 2022; it helps interpret responses through a novel, stylized crisis response framework, including explaining choices around “if” and “how” to respond; and it sets out four illustrative reform scenarios for making social protection more crisis ready. The paper argues that for crisis scalability to gain more policy traction, it must be communicated and devised as an effort to prepare seriously, scale up temporarily, and scale down credibly.

Date: 2026-09-16
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