UN/DESA Policy Brief #82 (14.07.2020) All social protection systems are designed to respond to shocks since, in addition to addressing chronic conditions, they are meant to address acute events that negatively impact individuals and households. However, some systems respond better than others. Typical life cycle events, related to the loss of jobs or illness, usually only affect some households at the same time. Standard social protection systems are set to respond to these individual or household-level shocks. A shock-responsive social protection system is also prepared to respond to covariate or systemic shocks that affect a large number of households simultaneously—be they natural disasters, food shortages, economic crises or disease outbreaks such as COVID-19. It is a system that can cope with sudden changes in both context and demand. Covariate shocks can be natural, political, or economic in nature.