Themes

Cash transfers have notable positive effects on young people’s participation and performance in education, human capital accumulation and other outcomes. By enabling families’ investment in their children, cash transfers can contribute to equality of opportunity for youth development and well-being.

Linking cash transfer programmes to complementary interventions and existing services can boost the impacts of cash for more transformative outcomes on the lives of programme paticipants. These integrated social protection initiatives, or ‘Cash plus’ programmes, range from behaviour change communication to facilitating enrollment in health insurance schemes, and more.

In many low- and middle-income countries, the economic impact of COVID-19 may hit harder than the virus itself, dragging already vulnerable families deeper into poverty. Social protection, including cash transfers, is being introduced or adapted to mitigate the impacts of COVID-19 and protect those hardest hit by the virus.

Cash transfers may have signifcant positive impacts on educational outcomes, reducing the liklihood of early entry into the labour force. They also reduce reliance on child labour to meet household needs, thereby increasing children’s access to educational opportunities.

Many cash transfer programmes target women, making it possible to measure gender-specific outcomes, such as the dynamics around finances and household decision-making. Additionally, cash transfers may alleviate intrahousehold stress which may contribute to more equitable gender relations and reduce emotional and physical domestic violence.

Evidence suggests that cash transfer recipients increase their food-related expenditures and improve their dietary diversity. Recipients may also increase their health service utilization and be discouraged from risky behaviors such as alcohol consumption and unprotected sexual activity, potentially contributing to reduced HIV incidence.

Complex and protracted crises have forced millions of people to leave their homes. The human and economic cost of disasters highlights the need for long-term policy responses capable of reaching vulnerable populations in a more consistent way. Cash transfers are one such response.

Cash transfers reduce poverty through increases in income, household consumption and investment in human capital, while allowing households to enhance their resilience to adverse shocks.

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Cash transfers contribute to household-level resilience through increased household savings and reducing negative coping strategies, among others. Cash transfers can also help stimulate local markets, supporting longer-term economic development efforts.