Child poverty, social exclusion and how social protection can help children enjoy basic living standards were the main topics of the Sub-Regional Conference on Social Protection for Children, organized by UNICEF in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, from 16 to 18 October. The event gathered high-level decision makers, social protection technical staff and policy influencers from the region to discuss innovation in social protection, exchange experiences and promote co-operation. IPC-IG's Senior Research Coordinator, Fábio Veras, was the keynote speaker of the session "Linking cash transfers and social services”.

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Linking Cash and Social Services
Conference: “Social Protection for
Children - Sharing good practices”
Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 16th to 18th October 2017
Fabio Veras Soares – IPC-IG

2. Cash in Social Protection
 Social Protection traditional definition encompasses:
(i) social insurance
(ii) social assistance and
(iii) labour market interventions
Different forms of income support – paid as cash – are
involved in these three areas – including contributory, semi-
contributory and non-contributory types of income support.
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3. Relevance and Prevalence of Cash for Children
• Several of the social protection cash-based interventions can
have an impact on both reducing and preventing monetary and
non-monetary child poverty;
• However, whereas child specific family benefits are a relatively
common and accepted feature of social insurance (contributory
social protection), child-focused social assistance/safety nets
are more controversial…
• Monetary benefits for working-age population are always
controversial… largely due to fear of negative impact on labour
force participation (dependency argument)
• Link with social services besides potentially providing synergies
can attenuate criticisms related to the dependency argument.
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4. Evolution of social security systems by branch: family and
children benefit is the second least prevalent.
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5. Cash and Social Services (1)
 Some forms of income support (cash benefits) are outside the social protection
sector:
(i) financed by sectoral budgets (e.g. Min. of Education, Min. of Health)
(ii) primarily design as a “nudge” – low cost incentives
(iii) social sector objectives have prevalence over social assistance objectives
However, they still have have a social protection role…
Examples:
(i) Scholarships and some forms of conditional cash transfers (CCTs) in the
education sector
(ii) stipend during health treatment or nutrition support
(iii) investment grants and training vouchers for the unemployed
In these cases the link between cash and social services are, by definition, more
straightforward. 4

6. Cash and Social Services (2)
However, the cash plus debate has been largely driven in the
international debate by the expansion of cash-based social
assistance programmes, particularly in Latin America, but
also in Asia and Africa.
This led some practitioners and specialists to draw attention
to a potential trade off between income support and
provision of social services:
“Cash is not enough, cash is not a silver bullet, cash drives
away resources and attention from (basic) social
services)”
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7. Cash and Social Services (3)
However two interesting aspects of the recent social cash
transfer (SCT) expansion seem to have facilitate the link
between cash and social services:
(i) Child-focused objectives of SCT: raising issues around
potential and limits of cash for nutrition, ECD, health,
education and domestic violence;
(ii) Expansion of administrative records (single registries and
integrated systems) – allowing the identification of
coverage gaps (exclusion), supply deficiencies (quantity
and quality) and potentially improving coordination.
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8. Case Study: CCTs in Latin American
Number of programmes in the region:
Source: ECLAC < http://repositorio.cepal.org/bitstream/handle/11362/41811/1/S1700419_es.pdf>
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9. Case Study: CCTs in Latin American
Coverage in % and millions of people
Number of programmes in the region:
Source: ECLAC < http://repositorio.cepal.org/bitstream/handle/11362/41811/1/S1700419_es.pdf>
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10. CCT and Social Services in Latin American Countries
Key Features:
Two objectives:
(i) Short-term poverty alleviation through transfers and
(ii) long-term (sustainable) poverty reduction through
investments in the nutrition, health and education (co-
responsibility: family and State)
Clearly objective (ii) requires complementary measures on
the supply side:
(i) Family compliance (conditionality)
(ii)Supply expansion (budget)
(iii) Complementary programmes
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11. CCT and Social Services in Latin American Countries
Complementary Programmes:
Two types:
(i) Programme adapted to the needs of the beneficiary of the
CCT programmes and exclusive for them – sectoral?
(ii) Facilitated access to existing programmes – referral and
ensuring there is no barriers to access
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12. CCT and Social Services in Latin American Countries
Complementary Programmes:
Cons and pros:
Tailor made programmes generate parallel structure independent of the
sectoral policy and may turn the cash transfer programmes
administratively too heavy, but if the content of existing sectoral policy
is not adapt to the socioeconomic profile of cash transfers beneficiary, it
may be the only option…
… although some incentives can be given to sectoral areas to adapt the
programmes.
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13. CCT and Social Services in Latin American Countries
Child-related Complementary Programmes:
Nutrition: food supplement for young children (micronutrients) and
pregnant or breastfeeding women;
- Oportunidades (tailor-made); Mi Familia Progresa – Guatemala –
and Juntos – Peru: existing programmes that use the health
conditionality as a way to include CCT beneficiary among their
beneficiaries.
Early childhood development: family visits, training for parents; (e.g
Familias en Acción – Colombia; Bolsa Familia – Criança Feliz - Brazil)
Education: school supplies (e.g. Bolsa Familia –one day shift schools)
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14. Integrated Systems for Information Management and Single Registries
 Single Registry: potential beneficiary of social programmes
(targeted) – socioeconomic profile. Selection of beneficiary
– issuing or using unique identifiers.
 Management Information Systems for each programmes
use the unique identifiers.
 Integrated System: allow information flow across
programmes and the single registry – identify potential
synergies and entry points for complementary programmes
and/or referral mechanisms.
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15. Integrated Systems for Information Management and Single Registries:
 The integrated systems can identify areas of interventions
beyond the targeted population and/or individual support to
the target population.
Examples:
(i) identifying areas with supply problems where
interventions benefit the whole community – poor school
performance;
(ii)Identifying children with nutrition problems – tailor made
support
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16. Thank you
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