Social Protection Policies and Programmes

Poverty affects both the quality and length of children’s lives, reduces the ability of families to adequately provide for their children, and is a significant cause of family breakdown and child separation. Social assistance programmes aim to reduce child poverty and act as a safety net for families with minimal resources.

Such programmes include in-kind and in-cash transfers, and food for work initiatives. Social assistance programmes are a part of social welfare and must include clear child care policies that protect children and strengthen family and community capacities to access services and provide care.

Cash transfers are a means of financially supporting the most vulnerable households to improve the child’s access to essential goods and services, such as health and education. They include the use of child support grants, child and family allowances and targeted and conditional cash transfers. They may be combined with investment in child education and health services, and redistributive tax policies.

In-kind transfers provide access to essential goods and services instead of cash payments. Conditional cash transfers provide money to poor families on achieving certain actions, such as sending children to school.

Social assistance programmes may struggle to target those most in need, and provide sustainable support. Economic policies, including social assistance, and household economic strengthening, require substantial research, monitoring, and gatekeeping to ensure that the poorest and most vulnerable are reached and that long term benefits can be achieved for families, including child headed households.

The literature in this section provides country examples and analyses of social assistance programs, focusing primarily on cash transfer schemes.

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Mapping of Residential Care Institutions in Sierra Leone

UNICEF, 01 Aug 2008

Mapping of existing facilities caring for children in residential capacity for use in developing child protection standards

Executive Summary of Enhanced Protection for Children Affected by AIDS - FRENCH

UNICEF, 31 Jul 2008

Outlines how to strengthen social protection, legal protection, and alternative care for children at country level. Contains specific actions that governments and NGO's can take to decrease the vulnerability of children affected by AIDS and respond to instances of abuse, exploitation and neglect.

Executive Summary of Enhanced Protection for Children Affected by AIDS - SPANISH

UNICEF, 31 Jul 2008

Executive Summary of Enhanced Protection of Children Affected by AIDS

UNICEF, 31 Jul 2008

Salt, Soap and Shoes for School: An Evaluation Report

HelpAge, REPSSI, World Vision and SDC, 01 Jul 2008

The impact of pensions on the lives of older people and grandchildren in the KwaWazee project in Tanzania’s Kagera region.

Social Protection for Children in the Context of HIV and AIDS: Moving Towards a More Integrated Vision

Kara Greenblot, 01 Jul 2008

Discusses the crucial need to address social vulnerability, in addition to economic vulnerability, when formulating social protection strategies

Strategic Approach to Categorizing Progress on Child Welfare Reform in CEE/CIS Countries

University of Pittsburgh, Office of Child Development, 01 Jul 2008

The purpose of this report is to create a strategy for assessing the status and progress of child welfare reform in CEE/CIS countries using the best available quantitative and qualitative information.