Publications

Savings play a crucial role in faciliating investment in income-generating activities and the pathway out of poverty for low-income households in developing settings. Yet, there is little evidence of successful programmes that increase savings, particularly those that are simultaneously cost effective, scaleable and  address gender inequalities. This paper examines the impact of the Government of Zambia’s Child Grant Programme (CGP), an unconditional cash transfer targeted to women in households with young children, on women’s savings and participation in non-farm enterprises.

Findings show that the CGP enabled poor women to save more cash and that the impact is larger for women who had lower decision-making power at baseline. The results support the proposition that cash transfers have the potential for long-term sustainable improvements in women’s financial position and household well-being by promoting savings and facilitating productive investments among low-income rural households.

The 2008 financial crisis triggered the first contraction of the world economy in the post-war era. This paper investigates the effect of the economic crisis on child poverty and material deprivation across the EU-28 plus Iceland, Norway and Switzerland. First, it examines if children were affected by the crisis to a greater extent than the population as a whole. Second, it analyses inequities among households with children and the degree to which those in workless households, migrant households, lone parent families and large families were at a greater risk of poverty and deprivation. Finally, it studies the extent to which social safety nets may have softened the negative impact of the economic crisis.

Social protection can be defined as the ‘set of public and private policies and programmes aimed at preventing, reducing and eliminating economic and social vulnerabilities to poverty and deprivation’. It comprises various types of instruments, and includes social insurance systems, labour market policies, and other social transfers. The focus in this paper is on non-contributory social transfers which are considered to be the main social protection instruments targeted specifically at poor and vulnerable households, and which are financed from general government revenues.