Social protection to support vulnerable children and families: the potential of cash transfers to protect education, health and nutrition

Abstract

Investing in social protection in sub-Saharan Africa has taken on a new urgency as HIVand AIDS interact with other drivers of poverty to simultaneously destabilise livelihoods systems and family and community safety nets. Cash transfer programmes already reach millions of people in South Africa, and in other countries in southern and East Africa plans are underway to reach tens and eventually hundreds of thousands more. Cash transfers worldwide have demonstrated large impacts on the education, health and nutrition of children. While the strongest evidence is from conditional cash transfer evaluations in Latin America and Asia, important results are emerging in the newer African programmes. Cash transfers can be implemented in conjunction with other services involving education, health, nutrition, social welfare and others, including those related to HIV and AIDS. HIV/ AIDS-affected families are diverse with respect to household structure, ability to work and access to assets, arguing for a mix of approaches, including food assistance and income-generation programmes. However, cash transfers appear to offer the best strategy for scaling up to a national system of social protection, by reaching families who are the most capacity constrained, in large numbers, relatively quickly. These are important considerations for communities hard-hit by HIV and AIDS, given the extent and nature of deprivation, the long-term risk to human capital and the current political willingness to act.

The impact of a conditional cash transfer programme on determinants of child health: evidence from Colombia

“…However, the latter study was cross-sectional and did not evaluate changes over time (41) . Consistent with previous studies (42,43) , we found that the programme increased consumption of some healthy foods that may be translated into an improvement of diet quality. However, we found a reduced intake of fruits, suggesting that food consumption is largely driven by a direct income effect rather than by improved nutritional knowledge and attitudes.…”

High magnitude of under nutrition among HIV infected adults who have not started ART in Tanzania--a call to include nutrition care and treatment in the test and treat model

“…In so doing, we can improve their undernutrition and, in turn, improve their HIV treatment outcomes [10]. Such povertyalleviating interventions include conditional cash transfer [25,26], small productivity groups, microfinancing of economic activities, and other livelihood programs [27,28].…”

Beyond education: What role can schools play in the support and protection of children in extreme settings?

“…Cash transfer programmes involve a regular (monthly or bimonthly) transfer of cash to poor families, with the expectation that this will contribute to an inclusion of the poorest pupils in school. Research suggests that a regular and reliable source of income can bolster a demand for schooling, both by preventing children from being withdrawn from school to engage in income generating activities, and by enabling parents to pay for school related expenses (Adato & Bassett, 2009;Behrman et al, 2011 …”