Poverty in Focus - Cash Transfers & Social Protection - Gender

Example of excerpt: "The ability to measure poverty and identify the poor is essential for designing any targeted transfer programme.....A sharper form of geographical tareting is community targeting, which presumably allows for better identification of the needy. However, community-based programmes also have their local political demands and prerequisites, their gender bias, their patronage and clientelism, and may run counter to the universalistic cultures of local communities. They can exacerbate local differentiation, be captured by local elites who may traditionally sanction discrimination. In many cases, deliberate exercise of administrative discretion has led to the exclusion of women....."

The International Poverty Centre has a comprehensive research agenda on cash transfer programmes. It is currently focused on comparative studies in selected countries in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa. Research encompasses both quantitative and qualitative methods and ex-ante and ex-post analyses of the impact of cash transfers on poverty and inequality. Major funding for this research is currently provided by the UK Department for International Development (DFID), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), and the UNDP Regional Bureau for Africa.

They have been successful in middle-income countries, such as Brazil, Mexico and South Africa. Now other Latin American countries and low-income countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia are considering them as a starting-point for integrated social protection systems.

This webpage highlights IPC publications on cash transfers and includes other important research papers, evaluation reports and interviews on the topic from multilateral organizations, NGOs, governments and practitioners.

IPC Publications
IPEA Publications
Evaluation reports
Country Programmes (CCTs and CTs)
Events
Other resources