The conditional cash transfer revolution in Latin America and the Caribbean, beginning in the mid-1990s and continuing to this day, heralded a new prominence and acceptance of applying rigorous impact evaluations to social programmes. Over the last decade, sub-Saharan Africa has begun its own...

Social transfers are increasingly seen as a key tool in east and southern Africa for combating the triple threat of chronic poverty, hunger and HIV. In designing programmes, targeting has emerged as a contentious issue in the region. Compared with other regions, programmes in sub-Saharan Africa...

The success of Mexico's conditional cash transfer programme (Progresa) has sparked a wave of similar programmes across the developing world, and the highly successful social experiment in Progresa has created demand for experimental evaluations among development partners, multilateral agencies...