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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The Challenges of El Salvador's Conditional Cash Transfer Programme, Red Solidaria

Tatiana Feitosa de Britto, International Poverty Centre, 2007

Provides analysis of the historical background and current structure of El Salvador's conditional cash transfer programme with attention to family integration

Evaluating the Impact of Brazil's Bolsa Familia Program

Fábio Veras Soares, Rafael Perez Ribas, Rafael Guerreiro Osório, 2007

Evaluates targeting and human capital impacts of Brazil's Bolsa Familia Program in comparison with Mexico's Oportunidades, and Chile's Chile Solidario.

Enhanced Protection for Children Affected by AIDS: A Companion Paper to The OVC Framework

UNICEF, 31 Dec 2006

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.

Conditional Cash Transfers: An Annotated Bibliography

Andrea Schapper, International Labour Organization, 02 Jan 2006

This document contains a bibliography global conditional cash transfer documents.

Progress for Children: A Report Card on Nutrition

UNICEF, 2006

Evaluates global improvements in nutrition as progress towards achieving the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs). Suggests that the MDGs are attainable only with re-prioritization of efforts to reduce child undernutrition.

Child Poverty and Cash Transfers

Armando Barrientos and Jocelyn DeJong, 2006

This paper examines the effectiveness of targeted cash transfers programs on reducing childhood poverty. It also explored the comparatives effectiveness of different kinds of cash transfers.

Using Social Transfers to Scale Up Equitable Access to Education and Health Services

Katie Chapman, 2006

This paper focuses on the impact of one form of demand-side policy option - social transfers, particularly cash transfers and vouchers - on access to health and education services by the extreme poor.

Implementation of the Child Support Grant: A Study of Four Provinces and Recommendations for Improved Service Delivery

Beth Goldblatt, Solange Rosa, and Katharine Hall, 2006

Using fieldwork data from six sites, this report addresses the need for improved delivery of the Child Support Grant in South Africa. Includes a comprehensive review of the grant components and current system of delivery. Recommended changes to the act and regulations are highlighted.

Guidelines for Combatting Child Labor Among Indigenous and Tribal Peoples

International Labor Organization IPEC and PRO 169, 2006

Guidelines to address the specific needs and rights of indigenous children in the context of child labour. Includes a comprehensive list of follow-up resources.

Social Protection: How important are the National Plans of Action for Orphans and Vulnerable Children?

Rachel Sabates-Wheeler and Lissa Pelham, 2006

This briefing paper emerges from a review of 14 national plans of action (NPA), or in the absence of a NPA, outputs from the rapid assessment analysis and action planning (RAAAP) work for orphans and children made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS. The purpose is to analyse the way that issues of social protection are incorporated into these plans and to highlight areas within the plans where social protection activity may be needed to achieve stated outcomes. Annex 3 summarises, country by country, the social protection content of each NPA.