The authors consider the question of what role safety net transfers should play in very low income countries where a large population live in absolute poverty, and the state has limited resources to fund transfers. The number of people living below minimum acceptable consumption levels will...

The conventional wisdom in mainstream development policy circles is that income transfers to the poor, and safety net policies more generally, are at best a short-term palliative and at worst a waste of money. They are not seen as a core element of an effective long-term poverty reduction...

This Policy Note presents the potential poverty impacts of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (Pantawid Pamilya) using simple analytical tools and the government's largest database of poor households to date, the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR). In doing...

This note describes the main design and implementation features of the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR) of the Philippines. The system consists of a set of uniform and objective criteria to identify the poor. An objective criterion to select those that need...

A wide range of public policies aims at improving the social welfare of the population or specific groups among the population. The use of the term social protection usually refers to the group of social policies that provide cash transfer to protect households from poverty. The goal of this...

Using a simple framework, this paper discusses the underlying reason of the variation of threshold level in developed countries, from the least generous 20 percent to around 60 percent of median wage, with an average of 35 percent. The generosity of minimum guarantee social assistance programs...

This report shows that while more inclusive growth is the ultimate solution to poverty in Lesotho, the country can and should use selective social transfers to reduce poverty more rapidly among the extreme poor. But because the majority of the transfers are received by people who are not among...

This note discusses two of the Philippines'biggest social assistance programs the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program, the government's first conditional cash transfer (CCT) program, and the rice subsidy program of the National Food Authority (NFA), one of the country's long-standing food-based...

This report lays the groundwork for a safety net system that can address the needs of the poor in Cameroon. Cameroon does not have a coordinated system of safety nets; rather, small, isolated interventions which together do not address the needs. Moreover, food and fuel price subsidies which...

This policy note presents the potential poverty impacts of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (Pantawid Pamilya) using simple analytical tools and the government's largest database of poor households to date, the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR). In doing...