The recently announced Direct Benefit Transfers (DBT) programme of the Government of India is being hailed as a ?game changer?. Many in the media and social commentators have been quick to compare it with the Brazilian Bolsa Familia. Unfortunately both the critics of cash transfers as well as...

The Benefício de Prestação Continuada (BPC ? Continuous Cash Benefit) programme grants a non-contributory benefit of the amount of one minimum wage to elderly people (65 or older) and those with disabilities that make them unfit to live and work independently. To qualify, there must be...

Mumbai, the capital city of the state of Maharashtra in India, is in fact the financial capital of India. With a population of 13.4 million (Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, 2010), it is the most populous city in India. It is also the most prosperous city in India, with the highest...

In many conditional cash transfer (CCT) programmes worldwide?including Brazil?s Bolsa Família?cash transfers are preferentially made to women. This feature was motivated by earlier research showing that greater control over resources among women is linked to an increase in their decision-making...

Recyclable materials pickers have been sorting through garbage and transforming it into usable commodities for a long time in many places across the globe. In Brazil they have been organising themselves in associations and social movements since the late 1980s. More recently, important events...

The concept of inclusive growth was quickly integrated into the development literature and policymaking, virtually becoming sine qua non of any discussion about improving living conditions in the developing world. This has happened despite the lack of a consensus on what inclusive growth is?with...

A set of recent papers has sought to make projections of global poverty into the future. These have significant policy implications because it is only by understanding both the future scale and anticipated locations of poverty that properly informed debates can be had on the scale and objectives...

Social pensions are expanding in rapidly ageing Asia as a means to protect older persons from poverty and social exclusion. Although social pensions are widely viewed as useful instruments to reduce old-age poverty and to include those traditionally excluded from contributory pension insurance,...

The real-time opportunities for sustainable inclusive green growth within the Southern African Development Community (SADC) are being explored as part of the development of a Green Guide for SADC parliamentarians. The collaborative partnership between the Rural and Sustainable Development team...

In 2006, the Government of Malawi initiated the Social Cash Transfer (SCT) programme as part of a poverty reduction strategy that targeted ultra-poor, labour-constrained households. The SCT programme is an unconditional cash transfer designed to reduce poverty, hunger and starvation, and improve...