Evaluations of social protection interventions across Africa often register significant success in improving household food security indicators, but little or no improvement in individual nutritional outcomes. One reason is under-coverage of poor people; another is the low value of social transfers. This paper reviews experiences with social protection in...

Cash transfers have expanded rapidly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) around the world in the past decade. The contexts in which they are implemented have also diversified; while cash transfers were mostly adopted initially as central elements of social protection systems, they have become increasingly popular as a...

Given the rise in humanitarian emergencies triggered by climate-related risks and conflict, often in contexts of chronic poverty and vulnerability, the international community is calling for the better integration of short-term humanitarian assistance and longer-term development interventions. In this context, social protection is increasingly portrayed as a policy tool...

Despite the recent increase of empirical research and conceptual development in transparency and accountability, much of this has been on the side of citizen action, looking at why and how citizens mobilize around accountability demands and at what makes their actions successful. Comparatively, there has been much less work...

Despite long-standing conceptual considerations of shame in understanding poverty and debates about its moral, social and emotional qualities, the role of shame in poverty reduction policies remains largely unexplored. Notions of shame or mechanisms leading to shame – such as stigma or lack of dignity or respect – feature...

The broad-ranging benefits of cash transfers are now widely recognized. However, the evidence base highlights that they often fall short in achieving longer-term and second-order impacts related to nutrition, learning outcomes and morbidity. In recognition of these limitations, several ‘cash plus’ initiatives have been introduced, whereby cash transfers are...

The paper discusses the role social protection can play in saving livelihoods while also enhancing the capacity of households to respond, cope and withstand threats and crises. It focuses on social protection’s role in protracted crises and fragile and humanitarian contexts, as well as discusses the importance of shock-response...

Globally, women perform the great majority of unpaid care work. This unjust distribution of labour has profound impacts on women’s human rights and is both a product and a driver of gender inequality. Despite the obligations of the State to ensure economic policies are non-discriminatory and prioritize human rights,...

International development actors increasingly focus on youth employment as a key development challenge. The recognition of high rates of unemployment, underemployment and job insecurity among young people around the world has led to a plethora of youth employment interventions, as well as often problematic discourses about youth “dividends and...

Social protection refers to a range of policies that explicitly aim to reduce poverty and vulnerability, and which have the potential to be redistributive. This contribution argues that social protection can significantly contribute to reducing inequality and social injustice, particularly when it is designed and delivered in conjunction with...

This report looks at seven dimensions of inequality and how they interact to shape people’s lives by creating a vicious cycle of inequality. Inequalities should not just be understood and tackled in terms of income and wealth. Inequalities can be economic, political, social, cultural, environmental, spatial and knowledge-based. The...

In 1792, the first consumer boycott was organised to protest against the inhumane treatment of slaves in the production of sugar in the West Indies. In his comic novel of the time, Melincourt, Thomas Love Peacock (1817) wrote of the trade in sugar that it was “economically superfluous, physically...

Social protection increases the resilience of households to shock and reduces barriers to essential services. When done well, it is based on a comprehensive assessment of risks and vulnerabilities, including those related to HIV and AIDS. A social protection strategy and its constituent programmes are designed to reduce, mitigate...

A feminist social protection programme recognises and enhances women’s identity as citizens and enables them to assume the roles they choose and fulfil the obligations they value. It is an approach that defines, targets and alleviates poverty in accordance with the views, priorities and experiences of the women beneficiaries...

This paper reflects on the methodological implications of operationalising an expanded framework for evaluating social protection programmes. It specifically discusses the combination and integration of methods as part of the expanded evaluation framework, and does so by using an ongoing evaluation of a cash transfer pilot programme in Tigray, Ethiopia as...

This article calls for a moment of pause to consider the current direction of social protection thinking and practice. It introduces a special issue in which a range of authors explore the relationship between social protection and social justice. The article argues that the currently technocratic approach to social...