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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LEGACY/Dry Zone Maternal and Child Cash Transfers RCT Evaluation: Key Findings

Save the Children, 01 Nov 2019

This brief presents the key findings from the LEGACY Program Randomized Controlled Trial. The Legacy Maternal and Child Cash Transfer (MCCT) aimed to improve nutrition outcomes for mothers and children through the delivery of nutrition-sensitive cash transfers to pregnant women in Myanmar during the First 1,000 Days.

Impact evaluation of a social protection programme paired with fee waivers on enrolment in Ghana’s National Health Insurance Scheme

Tia M Palermo, et al - BMJ Open, 11 Oct 2019

This study aimed to understand the impact of integrating a fee waiver for the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) with Ghana’s Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) 1000 cash transfer programme - a program for extremely poor households with orphans and vulnerable children, elderly with no productive capacity and persons with severe disability - on health insurance enrolment.

The State of the World’s Children 2019 - Children, food and nutrition: Growing well in a changing world

UNICEF, 01 Oct 2019

This edition of The State of the World’s Children report examines children, food and nutrition. It seeks to deepen understanding around the causes and consequences of children’s malnutrition in all its forms and to highlight how governments, business, families and other stakeholders can best respond.

Analytical Brief on the 2020 Social Sector Budget in Zambia

Zambia Institute for Policy Analysis and Research (ZIPAR), 01 Oct 2019

This report provides a brief analysis of social sector spending in Zambia.

Funding Supports and Services for Young People Transitioning from Foster Care

Lynn Tiede and Kristina Rosinsky - Child Trends, 01 Sep 2019

This report draws on interviews the authors conducted with 19 child welfare leaders in eight jurisdictions to highlight how jurisdictions are using existing funding sources to serve this population and examine the funding challenges they continue to face.

Parental absence: Intergenerational tensions and contestations of social grants in South Africa

Mokoene Ziphora Kearabetswe & Khunou Grace - Critical Social Policy, 26 Aug 2019

Through a thematic content analysis of qualitative interviews with members of migrants’ families, this article illustrates that in the context of internal labour migration, family responsibilities shift in ways that make unemployed grandmothers in South Africa who do not receive the Old Age Grant vulnerable.

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Factors Influencing Performance of Orphans and Vulnerable Children Programmes in Kenya: A Case of Unbound Project in Tharaka Nithi County, Kenya

Doreen Nkirote & Dr. Mercy M. Mugambi - International Academic Journal of Information Sciences and Project Management, 31 Jul 2019

The purpose of this study was to investigate factors influencing performance of orphans and vulnerable children Programmes in Kenya focusing on unbound project in TharakaNithi County, Kenya.

Factors influencing utilization of cash transferred to orphans and vulnerable children in Runyenjes Constituency, Embu County, Kenya

Martin Kaborio & Stephen Luketero - International Academic Journal of Information Sciences and Project Management, 18 Jul 2019

The sole purpose of the study was to determine the factors influencing utilization of cash transferred to orphans and vulnerable children in Runyenjes Subcounty, Embu County. The study concluded that demographic characteristics had the greatest effect on the utilization of cash transferred to orphans and vulnerable children, followed by frequency of cash transferred then attitude of beneficiaries while home factors had the least effect to the utilization of cash transferred to orphans and vulnerable children.

Forecasting Future Outcomes: Stronger Communities Investment Unit — 2018 Insights Report

Taylor Fry - Government of NSW, Their Futures Matter, 05 Jul 2019

This report, which was authored by Taylor Fry with support from Their Futures Matter (TFM) - a landmark reform of the Government of New South Wales (NSW), Australia to deliver improved outcomes for vulnerable children, young people and their families - and stakeholder agencies, presents key results and insights from the TFM Investment Model, an actuarial model of future outcomes and costs of providing key government services to children and young people in NSW.

Assessment of Rates of Child Maltreatment in States With Medicaid Expansion vs States Without Medicaid Expansion

Emily C. B. Brown, Michelle M. Garrison, Hao Bao, Pingping Qu, Carole Jenny, Ali Rowhani-Rahbar - JAMA, 14 Jun 2019

The purpose of this study was to determine whether Medicaid expansion is associated with changes in physical abuse and neglect rates of children in the US.