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.
... See More + Out an initial sample of 269 papers, 10 relevant empirical studies examine the question. The programs are classified into three clusters: (i) social assistance that implicitly deters migration centering on place-based programs, (ii) social assistance that implicitly facilitates migration by relaxing liquidity constraints and reducing transaction costs, and (iii) social assistance that is explicitly conditioned on spatial mobility. The paper finds that impacts on migration generally align with the implicit or explicit goals of interventions. Under cluster (i), the likelihood of moving declined between 0.22 and 11 percentage points; among schemes in clusters (ii) and (iii), the probability to move soared between 0.32-25 and 20-55 percentage points, respectively. The analysis also finds spillover effects within households and communities. While social assistance seems not to determine migration decisions per se, it nonetheless enters the broader calculous of mobility decision making. As such, social protection can be an important part of public policy packages to manage mobility. More research is needed to improve understanding of the role of social protection in structural transformation -- a process underpinned by domestic mobility and the performance of which may ultimately affect international migration.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS8525 JUL 12, 2018
With 1.5 billion people covered globally, food and voucher programs provide an important lifeline for the poor and vulnerable. The study is the 1.5 Billion People Question: Food, Vouchers or Cash Transfers?
... See More + reveals that while countries increasingly support people with cash as a form of safety net, food-based programs are still important interventions in some contexts. The analysis highlights how food and voucher programs remain relevant, and in most circumstances, have improved over time.It is against such a backdrop that this book explores how to genuinely integrate the agendas of social protection and food assistance. To be clear: over the past decades, efforts to introduce, expand, and upgrade social protection systems in low- and middle-income countries primarily revolved around cash transfers—and for good reasons. At the same time, about 1.5 billion people worldwide have been covered by in-kind food programs, 1 billion of whom live in countries examined in this volume. In-kind transfers have been a key vehicle to provide income support to poor consumers; but, on average, they have often done so at high cost and as part of broader agricultural support and food price risk management efforts. In other words,in-kind programs can generate technical and political economy quandaries that go well beyond income support to poor consumers.The book provides a long-awaited and very much-needed analysis on such a shift: when viewed through the lenses of history, countries are increasingly moving from in-kind provisions to cash-based transfers, often with vouchers as an intermediate step. Yet this process is far from straightforward, and it is checkered by the bumpy and erratic pathways of evolution. In particular, the book argues that many of the precursors of current cash transfer programs were in-kind measures and that such measures are still relevant in certain circumstances. The volume’s analysis—one at the intersection of economics, political economy, politics, sociology, and history—would help debunk some long-standing myths about food assistance, highlight the complex and inter- twined objectives pursued by well-intentioned food programs, and identify insightful lessons from reform processes that are, regrettably, seldom available internationally.
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As countries implement social assistance (or safety net) programs, a range of technicalhurdles can affect their implementation differently in rural and urban areas.
... See More + In urban areas,the focus of this study, cost of living can be higher and more prone to economic slowdowns.Poverty can be more severe than in rural areas and accompanied by high malnutrition rates.Implementation challenges in most urban areas relate to the lack of proper identification,outreach, intake, and registration of potential beneficiaries. These are in part due to thelack of social cohesion and different channels of communication. Therefore, social workersare likely to play an even more fundamental role in program implementation and M&Eprocesses.
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Working Paper (Numbered Series) 110822 DEC 01, 2016
Global interest around humanitarian and social protection issues is remarkable. These feature prominently in some of today’s most complex development challenges, whether supporting poor people in times of crises or providing them with a steady hand while pursuing opportunity.
... See More + To some extent, there is a common thread of themes that underpin both humanitarian and social protection matters, and which, at its core, is about state formation and its strengthening. The objective of this note is to map out some key issues relevant to humanitarian and social protection work, that is, to basically explore their interface. Yet as this note argues, they tend to differ in some fundamental aspects. It then briefly reviews the rationale for public interventions, examines how the debate is panning out in different contexts, and identifies a set of strategic and practical questions for further work in the area.
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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 developing counties.
... See More + Findings show that relative effectiveness cannot be generalized: although some differences emerge in terms of food consumption and dietary diversity, average impacts tend to depend on context, specific objectives, and their measurement. Costs for cash transfers and vouchers tend to be significantly lower relative to in-kind food. Yet the consistency and robustness of methods for efficiency analyses varies greatly.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS7584 FEB 29, 2016
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 developing counties.
... See More + Findings show that relative effectiveness cannot be generalized: although some differences emerge in terms of food consumption and dietary diversity, average impacts tend to depend on context, specific objectives, their measurement, and program design. Costs for cash transfers and vouchers tend to be significantly lower relative to in-kind food. Yet the consistency and robustness of methods for efficiency analyses varies greatly.
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The World Bank Research Observer is intended for anyone who has a professional interest in development. Observer articles are written to be accessible to non specialist readers; contributors examine key issues in development economics, survey the literature and the latest World Bank research, and debate issues of development policy.
... See More + Articles are reviewed by an editorial board drawn from across the Bank and the international community of economists. This edition has the following headings: The economic effects of counterfeiting and piracy: a review andimplications for developing countries; Measuring violent conflict in micro-level surveys: current practices and methodological challenges; Promoting women’s economic empowerment: what works?; Employer voices, employer demands, and implications for public skills development policy connecting the labor and education sectors; Revisiting the “cash versus food” debate: new evidence for an old puzzle?; The price is not always right: on the impacts of commodity prices on households (and countries).
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This paper reviews the existing evidence on the performance of alternative transfer modalities across humanitarian sectors, including cash transfers, vouchers, and in-kind assistance (food and non-food).
... See More + These were assessed in relation to food security, nutrition, livelihoods, health, education, and shelter objectives. The analysis focuses on the comparative performance of transfers, that is, on robust studies assessing transfers against each other in the same context and objectives. Based on available evidence, the paper identifies key factors to consider for transfer selection and core research priorities. Overall, six main findings emerge. Long-term global trends in concentration of people, economic activity, and technology are creating a landscape that is increasingly conductive for cash as an appropriate humanitarian response. The growing experiences with cash transfers over 2005–16 are promising, yet these seem dwarfed by their full potential. Trends in urbanization of crises and innovations in technology point to a possible significant increase in the share of cash used for humanitarian assistance beyond itscurrent single-digit share.
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Most safety net programs in low and middle-income countries have hitherto been conceived for rural areas. Yet as the global urban population increases and poverty urbanizes, it becomes of utmost importance to understand how to make safety nets work in urban settings.
... See More + This paper discusses the process of urbanization, the peculiar features of urban poverty, and emerging experiences with urban safety net programs in dozens of countries. It does so by reviewing multidisciplinary literature, examining household survey data, and presenting a compilation of case studies from a first generation of programs. The paper finds that urban areas pose fundamentally different sets of opportunities and challenges for social protection, and that safety net programs are at the very beginning of a process of urban adaptation. The mixed-performance and preliminary nature of the experiences suggest to put a premium on learning and evidence-generation. This may include revisiting some key design choices and better connecting safety nets to spatial, economic, and social services agendas compelling to urban areas.
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Working Paper (Numbered Series) 98253 JUL 01, 2015
Over the last decade, a policy revolution has been underway in the developing and emerging world. Country after country is systematically providing non-contributory transfers to poor and vulnerable people, in order to protect them against economic shocks and to enable them to invest in themselves and their children.
... See More + Social safety nets or social transfers, as these are called, have spread rapidly from their early prominence in the middle-income countries of Latin America and Europe increasingly to nations in Africa, Asia and the Middle East - and today, over 130 developing countries have made investments in social safety nets an important pillar of economic development policies. The statistics and analysis in The State of Social Safety Nets 2015 capture this revolution, and reveal it in many dimensions at the country, regional, and international levels. This latest edition of a periodic series brings together a large body of data that was not previously available, drawing on the World Bank's ASPIRE database and other sources. Why have so many countries made a firm commitment to incorporate social safety nets as part of their social and economic policy architecture? Because social safety nets work. This report also reports on the rigorous evidence that demonstrates their impact, and also points the way to making them even more efficient and effective at meeting their development goals. This latest edition of a periodic series brings together a large body of data that was not previously available, drawing on the World Bank's ASPIRE database and other sources to examine trends in coverage, spending, and safety nets program performance.
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This paper reviews key issues in the 'cash versus food' debate, including as they relate to political economy, theory, evidence, and practice.
... See More + In doing so, it benefited from a new generation of 12 impact evaluations deliberately comparing alternative transfer modalities. Findings show that differences in effectiveness vary by indicator, although they tend to be moderate on average. In some cases differences are more marked (i.e., food consumption and calorie availability), but in most instances they are not statistically significant. In general, transfers' performance and their difference seem a function of the organic and fluid interactions among factors like the profile and 'initial conditions' of beneficiaries, the capacity of local markets, and program objectives and design. Costs associated with cash transfers and vouchers tend to be substantially lower relative to food. Yet methods for cost-effectiveness analysis vary and need to be more standardized and nuanced. The reviewed evaluations are helping to shift the debate from one shaped by ideology, political economy and 'inference' of evidence to one centering on robust and context-specific results.
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Working Paper (Numbered Series) 89502 JUL 01, 2014
This publication begins a series that will monitor and report on social safety nets in developing countries. This first report in the series provides key social safety nets statistics and explains trends using information from 146 countries, including detailed household survey data from 69 countries in the World Bank's Atlas of Social Protection: Indicators of Resilience and Equity (ASPIRE) database.
... See More + This report reviews important policy and practical developments in social safety net programs and highlights emerging innovations. While the primary focus is on developing and emerging countries, it also includes some references to high-income settings.
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This report summarizes progress made by the Rapid Social Response Program (RSR), with special emphasis on the last 12 months. RSR was established in 2009 with initial support from the Russian Federation, Norway, and the United Kingdom.
... See More + Australia and Sweden joined the program in 2012 and 2013, respectively. While originally established as a crisis response mechanism, the current mission of RSR is to be catalytic, transformative, and forward-looking in its support to the development and strengthening of social protection and labor (SPL) systems in low-income countries eligible for International Development Association (IDA) support.
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