The unprecedented and ongoing scale-up of social protection responses to the COVID-19 pandemic dwarf the response to the Great Recession. But how are countries financing such scale-up efforts? This note lays out ten stylized findings from a rapid review of social protection financing sources in...

This book chronicles the development of Vietnam's rural electrification program. It tells the story of how the Vietnamese government conceived, developed, scaled up, and improved its program. It also discusses the role the government, the countries main utility, local authorities, local...

Governments in low and middle-income countries are increasingly investing in social protection, and also address many of their own people's 'humanitarian' needs themselves. For their international partners, who may have an important role in filling gaps when household needs exceed national...

Over 60 million people are currently displaced due to conflict or violence, and about 140 million are exposed to natural disasters. As part of humanitarian responses to those affected populations, growing attention is paid to cash transfers as a form of assistance. Cash is being strongly...

The longstanding "cash versus food" debate has received renewed attention in both research and practice. This paper reviews key issues shaping the debate and presents new evidence from randomized and quasi-experimental evaluations that deliberately compare cash and in-kind food transfers in ten...

This paper examines the economic and social implications of the current system of residential electricity subsidies in Pakistan, and assesses the potential to improve the system's outcomes through alternative targeting and program design. The analysis is multi-disciplinary in nature, drawing on...

The Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (Pantawid Pamilya) has rapidly expanded to become the largest social protection and human development program in the Philippines. Over the last decade, the evolution of the Pantawid Pamilya was not only about its size and coverage, but also related to the...

This paper examines China's rural minimum living standard guarantee (dibao) program, one of the largest minimum income cash transfer schemes in the world. Using household survey data matched with published administrative data, the paper describes the dibao program, estimates the program's impact...

The paper reviews the evidence on a "hot" and yet underexplored question-that is, whether and how social assistance programs (especially cash transfers) affect domestic and international migration. Out an initial sample of 269 papers, 10 relevant empirical studies examine the question. The...

"Universal Basic Income (UBI) is one of the most hotly-debated ideas in development and social protection. Drawing from global evidence and experiences, this volume provides a compass to help navigate key issues and trade-offs, as well as offering new data and insights to better inform choices...