Publications

A review paper on the state of the evidence and on-going research on the effects of cash transfers on HIV risk behavior.

The results of a major mixed methods evaluation of South Africa’s Child Support Grant were launched on 24 May 2012 by the Minister of Social Development. The study was commissioned by the National Department of Social Development (DSD) of the Government of South Africa, the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) and UNICEF and was conducted by the Economic Policy Research Institute (EPRI) in consortium with the Institute for Development Studies (IDS) of the University of Sussex, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Oxford Policy Management (OPM), Reform Development Consulting (RDC) and Take Note Trading (TNT).

A summary of the main findings is available here.
The qualitative report is available here.
The main quantitative is quite large and can be accessed at the UNICEF South Africa website.

Selected papers from the Transfer Project’s first Research Network Conference (Naivasha, Kenya January 2011) have been published in a special issue of the Journal of Development Effectiveness entitled ‘Evaluating Social Cash Transfers in sub-Saharan Africa.” To see the table of contents for the special issue and download the Editors Introduction for free please click here http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rjde20/4/1

The International Poverty Center for Inclusive Growth (IPC-IG) has published one page summaries of each of the articles in the special issue which are available directly from their website (see below).

1. One Pager No. 146 — Evaluating the Impact of Cash Transfer Programmes in Sub-Saharan Africa
   by Benjamin Davis, FAO; Marie Gaarder, NORAD; Sudhanshu Handa, UNC and Jenn Yablonski, Unicef

   The conditional cash transfer (CCT) revolution in Latin America and the Caribbean, beginning in the mid-1990s and continuing to this day, heralded a new prominence and acceptance of applying rigorous impact evaluations to social programmes. Beginning with the landmark impact evaluation of the Mexican PROGRESA programme in 1998, almost all programmes in this new generation of social programmes were accompanied by experimental, or non-experimental but rigorous, impact evaluations. These impact evaluations radically advanced the state of knowledge on CCTs, leading to improved implementation in their respective countries, but also pushing forward in terms of methodology, technique, design, sampling and analysis of impact evaluation data. (…) http://www.ipc-undp.org/pub/IPCOnePager146.pdf

2. One Pager No. 147 — Does the Unconditional Kenya’s Cash Transfer for Orphans and Vulnerable Children have Impacts on Schooling?
   by Kenya CT-OVC Evaluation Team

   The Kenya Cash Transfer for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (CT-OVC) The CT-OVC is the Government of Kenya’s flagship social protection programme, currently reaching approximately 130,000 households across the country. Its objective is to provide regular cash transfer payments to families living with OVC to encourage fostering and retention of children and to promote their human capital development. Eligible households, those who are ultra-poor and contain an OVC, receive a flat monthly transfer of Ksh 1500 (approximately US$20). An OVC is defined as a household resident between 0 and 17 years old with at least one deceased parent, or who is chronically ill, or whose main caregiver is chronically ill. The programme is unconditional, although households are informed that the care and protection of the resident OVC is their responsibility for receiving the cash payment. (…) http://www.ipc-undp.org/pub/IPCOnePager147.pdf

3. One Pager No. 148 — Does Community-Based Targeting Really Work in Cash Transfer Programmes in Africa?
   by Nicola Hypher, SCUK and Fábio Veras, IPC-IG

   Social transfers are increasingly seen as a key tool in Eastern and Southern Africa to combat the triple threat of chronic poverty, hunger and HIV/AIDS. Targeting effectiveness in defining which groups are eligible and how these groups are identified is fundamental to the impact of these programmes. There is a key distinction between the targeted cash transfer programmes in Latin America and those in Africa, which use ‘community-based’ targeting (CBT), thereby incorporating a more substantial role of the community in the overall selection of beneficiaries, albeit following or based on other targeting criteria (geographic, demographic and proxymeans testing). To help better understand some of the different targeting approaches in Eastern and Southern Africa and their effectiveness, Handa et al. (2012) examine cash transfer programmes in Kenya, Malawi and Mozambique which are very different in other aspects but all use some level of CBT. (…) http://www.ipc-undp.org/pub/IPCOnePager148.pdf

4. One Pager No. 149 — Do Unconditional Social Cash Transfer Schemes Have Productive Impacts in Malawi?
   by Katia Covarrubias and Benjamin Davis, FAO and Paul Winters, American University

   In 2006, the Government of Malawi initiated the Social Cash Transfer (SCT) programme as part of a poverty reduction strategy that targeted ultra-poor, labour-constrained households. The SCT programme is an unconditional cash transfer designed to reduce poverty, hunger and starvation, and improve school enrolment and attendance and the health and nutrition of children among the poorest 10 per cent of households in Malawi. The programme currently reaches over 28,000 households and is expected to serve 300,000 households with 910,000 children by 2015. The value of the transfer ranges from US$4 per month for a household with one eligible member to US$13 per month for households with four or more eligible members. In addition, the programme offers a schooling attendance bonus ranging from US$1.30 per month for primary-school-age children to US$2.60 per month for secondary-school-age children. On average, the transfer represents just under 30 per cent of beneficiary households’ per capita income. (…) http://www.ipc-undp.org/pub/IPCOnePager149.pdf

5. One Pager No. 150 — Simulating the Impacts of Rural Social Cash Transfers and Farmer’s Subsidies in Malawi and Ghana
   by Mateusz Filipski and J. Edward Taylor, UC Davis

   A considerable body of experimental economics research examines the impacts of cash transfer programmes. In many developing countries, though, cash transfers are relatively minor compared to other transfer mechanisms in terms of their claim on public resources. In Malawi, fertilizer subsidies dwarf cash transfers, while next door in Zambia, the government pays farmers prices well above market levels for their maize. Yet no study to our knowledge has attempted to compare the full impact of social cash transfers and other kinds of transfers on rural incomes and welfare in low-income countries. (…) http://www.ipc-undp.org/pub/IPCOnePager150.pdf

6. One Pager No. 151 — Do Cash Transfers Change Household Consumption Preferences? – Evidence from an Unconditional Cash Transfer in Kenya
   by Kenya CT-OVC Evaluation Team

   The Kenya Cash Transfer Programme for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (CT-OVC) is the government’s flagship social protection programme, reaching over 125,000 households and 250,000 OVC across the country as of mid-2011. The programme’s objective is to provide regular cash transfers to families living with OVC, to encourage fostering and retention of children and to promote development of their human capital. Eligible households, those who are ultra-poor and contain an OVC, receive a flat monthly transfer of US$21 (Ksh 1500). An OVC is defined as a household resident aged between 0 and 17 years old with at least one deceased parent, or who is chronically ill, or whose main caregiver is chronically ill. Beneficiary households are informed that the care and protection of the resident OVC is their responsibility for receiving the cash payment, although there are currently no punitive sanctions for non-compliance with this responsibility. http://www.ipc-undp.org/pub/IPCOnePager151.pdf

UNICEF has been working on social protection for many years as part of its global mandate to advocate for and expand children’s rights and opportunities. This work includes supporting governments in the development and strengthening of programmes and policies, advocating for child and gender-sensitive social protection, as well supporting the Social Protection Floor Initiative. It is thus with great pleasure that UNICEF announces the launch of its first global Social Protection Strategic Framework. This newly released document presents UNICEF's approach to social protection, makes the case for child-sensitive interventions, promotes the development and strengthening of integrated social protection systems, discusses the importance of a multi-sector approach that maximizes linkages for improving sector outcomes, and discusses current debates including social protection financing, expansion of coverage, and inclusive design. Moreover, the Framework proposes a collaborative policy agenda for social protection – including UNICEF’s potential role – as a platform to engage development partners in leveraging social protection for children.

To access the Social Protection Strategic Framework, please go to: www.unicef.org/socialprotection/framework

This book, edited by Sudhanshu Handa, Stephen Devereux and Douglas Webb and, contains a collection of papers on child sensitive social protection in Africa and is divided into four thematic areas. The first presents economic and human-rights based arguments for social protection as an integral part of the social policy menu in Africa. This is followed by a section on targeting, which highlights some of the key policy trade-offs faced when deciding between alternative target groups. The third section presents rigorous quantitative evidence on the impact of social cash transfers on children from programs in South Africa, Malawi and Ethiopia and the final part addresses a set of issues related to social justice and human rights. The work contained in this book was partially funded by UNICEF’s Eastern & Southern African Regional Office in Nairobi, Kenya and the U.K. Department for International Development’s Children and AIDS Regional Initiative. Read chapter 2 of The Case for Social Protection for Children by Blank, Devereux & Handa or view additional details about the book and order your copy at http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415583336/.

Social transfers are increasingly being seen as a key tool in East and Southern Africa for combating the triple threat of chronic poverty, hunger and HIV/AIDS. As programs expand, a number of design and implementation issues have begun to dominate the policy debate, and one topic in particular is targeting, which has emerged as a contentious issue in program design in the region. A variety of approaches are used in the region , ranging from universal old age pensions, to means-tested child support grants, to a variety of community based poverty and OVC targeted programs. To help better understand some of the different targeting approaches in the region and their effectiveness, this paper examines three cash transfer programs in Kenya, Malawi and Mozambique. All three countries employ community based targeting mechanisms; each, however, targets different kinds of households and employs different methodologies. This study combines descriptive analysis of the targeting process with quantitative analysis comparing the characteristics of beneficiary households taken from program baseline evaluation surveys with characteristics of poor households based on national household surveys. The study uses monetary, asset-based, and multidimensional measures to compare the effectiveness of the programs’ targeting when using economic poverty measures vs. multidimensional measures. It then assesses these measures of effectiveness in light of the program objectives and desired beneficiary populations, and explores policy implications for the different targeting approaches. [download PDF]