Family for Every Child, in partnership with the Centre for Social Protection at the Institute for Development Studies, just announced the launch of its Cash for Care: Making Social Protection Work for Children’s Care and Well-being Report.
The research, jointly produced by Family for Every Child's member organizations Uyisenga Ni Imanzi (Rwanda), Challenging Heights (Ghana) and Children in Distress Network (South Africa), shows that effective high-quality governmental cash transfer programs can improve children’s well-being, protection and care by their families. It also shows that poorly designed cash transfer schemes can do more harm than good.
This study reviewed four social protection programs: the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme in Ghana; the Vision 2020 Umurenge Programme (VUP) in Rwanda; the Child Support Grant (CSG) in South Africa; the Foster Child Grant program in South Africa. Each of these provided cash transfers to the recipients for children who were in an orphan or a vulnerable child.
All programs reported positive results leaving the care providers with confidence in their abilities to fulfill care obligations. Negative impacts included transfers reinforcing certain children’s marginalized positions within the household and inappropriate use of transfers on alcohol. The study recommends when determining need, amounts should make a significant contribution to household income and be responsive to household size. The study also recommends that there should be an emphasis on supporting children’s care and wellbeing.
