This paper includes cash transfers, cash-for-work, asset transfers and pensions. It excludes all other types of social protection, such as microfinance, food-for-work, school feeding, vouchers, and insurance. It lists meta-analyses, systematic reviews, syntheses and meta-evaluations, and excludes single programme evaluations. This report does not include primary research papers. All included reports draw on the programme evaluation literature, rather than policy or overview literature. The report errs on the side of inclusivity, and includes literature which have some relevant components from the list above, even if they also have other components.
There are two main sections to the report:
- Cash transfers (CTs): Much of the social protection literature looks at CTs, either exclusively or as part of a package. This review found no meta-reviews which only evaluated Unconditional cash transfers (UCTs), except a review of pensions. There is minimal literature on pensions.
- Impact analysis: This section includes the papers which looked at social transfers more broadly, and which were focused on drawing out evidence of impacts. They include some papers on CTs, but the focus of the papers is on examining development outcomes rather than describing particular projects.
