Resilient safety nets: Rethinking health-related social protection amid emerging Climate-Driven Pandemics

William Manga Mokofe ORCID iD  

Issue: Vol. 7 No.5  2026 Article 16 pp.1374 – 1384
DOI: https://doi.org/10.38159/ehass.20267516 Published online 26th June 2026

© 2026 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

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Emerging climate-driven pandemics expose critical weaknesses in existing health-related social protection systems. This article examined how intensifying environmental disruptions – ranging from zoonotic spillovers to heat-related disease outbreaks – challenge conventional frameworks of public health security and welfare provision. Drawing on interdisciplinary perspectives, it argued that social protection must be reconceptualised to address the dual threats of climate change and pandemics as interlinked crises rather than isolated phenomena. The analysis highlights the need for adaptive, universal, and equity-oriented policies capable of safeguarding vulnerable populations against cascading socio-economic shocks. By exploring innovative policy instruments and governance strategies, this study contributes to a transformative agenda that integrates climate resilience with health justice. Eventually, it calls for the reimagining of social protection as a dynamic infrastructure essential to sustaining human well-being in an era of unprecedented planetary risk.

Keywords: Social Protection, Climate Change, Pandemics, Health Systems, Resilience, Equity

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 Dr. William Manga Mokofe (LLD), (LLM), (LLD) is a Senior Law Lecturer at the Walter Sisulu University, South Africa. He is an admitted Advocate of the High Court of South Africa and serves as the Non-Examining Chairperson (NEC), Faculty of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences, Walter Sisulu University, South Africa.

Mokofe, William Manga. “Resilient Safety Nets: Rethinking Health-Related Social Protection Amid Emerging Climate-Driven Pandemics.” E-Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences 7, no.5 (2026): 1374 – 1384 .  https://doi.org/10.38159/ehass.20267516

© 2026 The Author(s). Published and Maintained by Noyam Journals. This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

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