Policy areas

Since the beginning, the CPRC has been at the forefront of researching social protection and providing evidence that it can work as an approach to tackle chronic and extreme poverty. Our research and policy analysis on social protection has influenced thinking that social protection can address chronic poverty, and that social protection programmes should be at the core of strategies to end chronic poverty.

Research and policy

Effective social protection programmes can do more than help people above the poverty line manage risk and avoid falling into poverty. They can also help those trapped in chronic poverty build assets and escape poverty. Social protection programmes are feasible and financially affordable even in low-income countries. This policy analysis has been presented in the report Social transfers and chronic poverty: Objectives, design reach and impact.

During the past decade, the CPRC has led innovative thinking on social protection – for instance, a design for a social protection pilot for the Ministry of Finance in Uganda, was implemented starting in 2010; and the book Just Give Money to the Poor has recently made a big impact in providing evidence that cash transfers for the poorest work.

Policy against chronic poverty continues to challenge and is complex. CPRC’s research reveals that a policy focus on social protection can provide an entry-point to more difficult issues on making growth inclusive and fostering progressive social change. It can mobilise social forces to address issues of discrimination and unfair power relations, hence is a critical focus for the remaining period to 2015, and for the post 2015 agenda.

Key resources

Social protection to tackle chronic poverty

• Social protection: top priority to end chronic poverty
  ^{Policy brief 9}
  
• Social protection transfers for chronically poor people
  ^{Policy brief 2}
  
• Tackling obstacles to social protection transfers for chronically poor people
  ^{Policy brief 3}
  

Social protection policy and programmes

• Social Assistance in Developing Countries Database
  ^{CPRC Database}
• Do social transfer programmes have long-term effects on poverty reduction?
  ^{Policy brief 20}
  
• Social transfers and growth: a review
  ^{CPRC Working paper 112}
  

Country focus: Uganda

• A social protection agenda for Uganda’s poorest of the poor
  ^{CPRC-Uganda Policy brief 2/2006}
  
• Targeting and protecting the chronically poor in Uganda: A case for the elderly
  ^{CPRC-Uganda Policy brief 3/2006}
  
• View all CPRC-Uganda policy briefs

View more publications on social protection and see the insecurity, vulnerability and social protection theme.