LONDON, 27 July, 2016 (ODI): Cash transfers have been increasingly adopted by countries worldwide as central elements of their social protection and poverty reduction strategies. A growing number of studies provide rigorous evidence on the impact of cash transfers, and the role of specific cash transfer design and implementation features in shaping outcomes.
This rigorous review of the impact of cash transfers is the largest and most comprehensive review of its kind to date. It consolidates and assesses the body of evidence from 2000 to 2015, covering low- and middle-income countries worldwide, to provide policy-makers, practitioners and researchers with a single resource on the most rigorous and up-to-date evidence available.
Læs også: Kontanthjælp som udviklingsbistand (23.06.2016)
The review covers the intended and unintended impact on individuals and households of non-contributory cash transfer programmes on six outcome areas:
- Monetary poverty
- Education
- Health and nutrition
- Savings, investment and production
- Employment
- Empowerment
It pays particular attention to the links between variations in cash transfer design and implementation details (e.g. transfer value, targeting mechanism, conditionality) and outcomes.
Key findings
The impacts of cash transfers on individual- and household-level outcomes:
- Monetary poverty: Cash transfers reduce monetary poverty.
- Education: Cash transfers raise school attendance, but do not always lead to improved learning.
- Health and nutrition: Cash transfers stimulate health service use and improve dietary diversity, but there is less evidence that they affect the height and weight of children.
- Savings and investment: Cash transfers can help foster beneficiaries’ economic autonomy.
- Employment: Cash transfers are associated with a reduction in child labour. Most show either no effect or a positive effect on adults working.
- Empowerment: Cash transfers increase women’s decision-making power and choices, but do not always reduce emotional abuse.
The role of cash transfer design and implementation features:
- Core design features: There is a strong evidence base showing that the size of the transfer and duration of its receipt play a role in supporting progress towards intended outcomes.
- Conditionality: Including an element of conditionality (in terms of health and education service use) can, but does not necessarily, lead to greater impacts in these areas; clear communication about the importance of using services is an element of conditionality clearly associated with greater service uptake.
- Payment mechanisms: A limited evidence base shows that different payment mechanisms can be linked to different outcomes.
- Complementary interventions and supply-side services: Complementary interventions and supply-side services can strengthen the impacts of cash transfers.
The outputs, which you can download below, are:
Briefing paper – summary of findings (PDF, 7 sider)
This briefing paper summarises the findings of a rigorous literature review of the evidence on the impacts of cash transfers on individuals and households, covering literature spanning 15 years (2000-2015) and low- and middle-income countries worldwide.
It provides an overview of the findings by outcome (monetary poverty, education, health and nutrition, savings, investment and production, employment, empowerment) and discusses the role of variations in cash transfer design and implementation details.
Full report (PDF, 300 sider)
This report on the impact of cash transfers assesses and synthesises evidence from 15 years of studies, covering 30 low- and middle-income countries, to provide policy-makers, practitioners and researchers with a single resource on the most rigorous and up-to-date evidence available.
The report contains detailed findings organised by outcome area and design feature, as well as a detailed conceptual framework for the analysis of cash transfers, a summary of existing cash transfer reviews, and a synthesis of the review’s findings and related policy implications.
Focusing on non-contributory monetary transfers, including conditional and unconditional cash transfers, social pensions and enterprise grants, the review addresses three overarching research questions:
- What is the evidence of the impact of cash transfers on a range of individual- or household- level outcomes, including intended and unintended outcomes?
- What is the evidence of the links between variations in programme design and implementation features and cash transfer outcomes?
- What is the evidence of the impacts of cash transfers, and of variations in their design and implementation components, on women and girls?
Annotated bibliography (PDF, 108 sider)
This annotated bibliography is a key resource for policy analysts and practitioners working on social protection and cash transfers.
An output of ODI’s rigorous and comprehensive review of the impact of cash transfers, it contains a full list of the studies that passed the screening process and, for each study, reports the outcomes and indicators covered, the cash transfer programme(s) considered, the methodology adopted, and the main findings. It is intended as a resource, particularly for policy-makers and researchers, to facilitate the identification and analysis of relevant rigorous studies on the impacts of cash transfers.
