Social transfers

Abstract

Social transfers are on the rise across the globe, proving to be a social protection tool that can be flexibly used across contexts and different target groups. Transfers can have an insurance as well as a poverty reduction function and they can be the first as well as the last layer of protection. While the growth of programmes and the accompanying evidence base has been unprecedented, still relatively few people across the world, in particular the poorest, have access to a social transfer, let alone an adequate one. While seemingly easy to design, social transfers require carefully deliberated choices when it comes to targeting, the transfer size, conditionality as well as the exit strategy. Greater efforts are required to sustain social transfers financially, institutionally and politically.