The document discusses social protection approaches for children and adolescents. It outlines UNICEF's focus on using social protection systems to promote children's rights and equitable outcomes. Social protection can be protective, preventive, or transformative. The document then reviews evidence that social cash transfers can positively impact education and child labor outcomes, as well as safe transitions to adulthood by delaying marriage and childbearing. However, impacts vary by context and gender. The document calls for mainstreaming an adolescent lens into social protection programming to better address their needs through program design, features, and indicators.

1. unite for
children
A LIFE-CYCLE APROACH TO SOCIAL
PROTECTION: EVIDENCE ON CHILDHOOD
AND ADOLESCENCE
Academy on Social Security
Turin, Italy
September 17, 2018
Tia Palermo, Ph.D.
Social Policy Specialist
UNICEF Office of Research - Innocenti

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UNICEF’s focus on social protection
• Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) establishes children’s
right to social security and adequate standard of living
• UNICEF supports nationally-led, inclusive SP systems
•Remove economic & social barriers to promote equitable outcomes
•Promote linkages between SP & multi-sector outcomes
• Focus on 4 areas:
1. Social transfers (cash transfers, food transfers, public works, nutritional
supplementation)
2. Ensure access to services (cash transfers, birth registration, health
insurance, user fee abolition)
3. Social support and care
4. Legislation and policy reform ( remove inequalities in access to
services, livelihoods, economic opportunities and address issues of
exclusion, discrimination)

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Social Protection
Protective: cash transfers,
etc.
Preventive: insurance, etc.
Transformative: results in
increases in equity and a
reduction in social exclusion

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Social protection: a life-cycle approach
Birth
Birth
registration
Pre- and post-
natal care
Health
insurance
linkage
Nutrition
Early
childhood
Preventive
health check-
ups
Education
Nutrition
Violence
prevention
Adolescence
Education
Delay
pregnancy,
prevent HIV
Delay marriage
Protection from
hazardous labor
Violence
prevention

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Theory
Increase household investment in:
 Education  Positive impact on school
enrolment
 Household productive activities 
Ambiguous impact on child labor
Evidence
 Education impacts: mostly positive, highest
for CCT (de Hoop & Rosati 2014)
 Child labor impacts: mixed, with CCT more
likely to reduce child labor compared to other
programs such as UCT, labor market
programs and micro-credit (Dammert et al.
2018)
 Gaps
 Impacts on worst forms of child labor (e.g.
work in hazardous industries/occupations)?
 Long-term effects?
 Impact of cash plus programs?
Photo credit: Participant in
UNICEF Innocenti research,
Malawi
Evidence on education & child labor

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 Positive, but mixed (varies by context, gender) evidence that cash
transfers programs:
Delay sexual debut, marriage and childbearing, but not in all settings (Dake et al.
2018; Handa et al. 2014; Handa et al. 2015; Heinrich et al. 2017)
Reduce risky sexual behaviors (Cluver et al. 2013)
Improve mental health (Kilburn et al. 2016)
Reduce intimate partner violence (Pettifor et al. 2016)
 Transformative potential:
 Reduce gender disparities in secondary school enrolment;
 Challenge traditional attitudes around how girls are valued by their families and
communities
 Increase capacities, opportunities and economic inclusion
Evidence on safe transitions to
adulthood

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 Economic growth & “demographic dividend”
 Period of rapid physiological, biological and
psychological change, heighted exposure to poverty and
vulnerabilities
 Transitions have long-term impacts on an individual’s
future health, well-being, and productivity
 Investments in adolescence: “triple dividend”
 Unique window of opportunity to:
 Enhance individual capabilities – access to
education, reduce skills deficit
 Improve opportunities constrained by gender
norms
Why invest in adolescents through SP?

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 Traditionally, not the primary focus of government-run SP
Prioritization of early childhood development (ECD)
In SSA, targeting often includes large number of
adolescents, but multiple needs and vulnerabilities rarely
reflected in program design
 Gender lens rarely used for understanding exposure to risk
& vulnerability and informing design
 Many issues related to adolescence (eg. sexuality, SRH)
remain sensitive and not directly addressed, influencing
poverty trajectories
How are adolescents represented in SP
programming?

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 Sub-set of adolescent-focused programmes (typically run
as pilots) to address different (overlapping) vulnerabilities
faced by adolescents and promote wellbeing
Cash transfers (conditional and unconditional)
•Educational stipends/scholarships/vocational training
•Fee waivers
•In-kind transfers (eg. school feeding, uniforms/school supplies)
 ‘Transformative’ programs need to promote:
 empowerment, voice and agency among adolescents
 tackle harmful socio-cultural practices
 improve their strategic position in families and community
How are needs reflected in programming?

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 Adolescent-sensitive design innovations
 Zambia: worked with Ministry of Education to provide waivers
for SCT households with secondary school-age girls; linkages to
SRH/HIV services
 India: Individual entitlements to adolescent girls have been
rolled out in various states
 Transfer size: can affect intra-hh gender and age dynamics and
address specific gender vulnerabilities.
Mexico, Colombia: Allocating higher amounts for secondary- school-
age girls than for primary-school-age girls; while PATH in Jamaica delivers
higher payments for boys.
Mexico, Tanzania, etc.: Higher payments for secondary-school age
children (great opportunity cost of lost waves)
 Linkages to additional services/complementary programs
How can design features be used strategically to
improve (transformative) outcomes for
adolescents?

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 Mainstream adolescent lens into programming
 SP has large potential for adolescents, but need to ensure their needs
are explicitly reflected in the programming/making adjustments to
existing programs (e.g. objectives, features, M&E indicators)
 Requires investments in staff capacity and operational systems,
building political commitment and support
 Where programs specifically target adolescents:
 More needs to be understood about the situations where girls and/or
boys should be preferentially targeted, based on evidence
 Consider especially vulnerable groups of adolescents/those ‘hard-to-
reach’
 Facilitate access to services
 UNICEF supports universal child grants and is developing a series of
case studies which can be a useful resource (expected 2019)
Conclusions & recommendations

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References
• Baird, S., et al. (2014). "Conditional, unconditional and everything in between: a systematic review of the effects of
cash transfer programmes on schooling outcomes." Journal of Development Effectiveness 6(1): 1-43.
• Cluver, L., Boyes, M., Orkin, M., Pantelic, M., Molwena, T., & Sherr, L. (2013). Child-focused state cash transfers
and adolescent risk of HIV infection in South Africa: a propensity-score-matched case-control study. The Lancet
Global Health, 1(6), e362-e370.
• Dake, F., Natali, L., Angeles, G., De Hoop, J., Handa, S., & Peterman, A. (2018). Income transfers, early marriage
and fertility in Malawi and Zambia. Studies in family planning, in press.
• Dammert AC, de Hoop J, Mvukiyehe E, Rosati FC. (2018). Effects of public policy on child labor: Current knowledge,
gaps, and implications for program design. World Development, 110: 104-123.
• De Hoop, J. and F. Rosati (2013). Cash Transfers and Child Labor. IZA DP No. 7496. Bonn, Germany, Institute for
the Study of Labor.
• Handa, S., Halpern, C. T., Pettifor, A., & Thirumurthy, H. (2014). The government of Kenya's cash transfer program
reduces the risk of sexual debut among young people age 15-25. PLoS One, 9(1), e85473-e85473.
• Handa, S., Peterman, A., Huang, C., Halpern, C. T., Pettifor, A., & Thirumurthy, H. (2015). Impact of the Kenya Cash
Transfer for Orphans and Vulnerable Children on Early Pregnancy and Marriage of Adolescent Girls. Social Science
& Medicine, 141, 36-45.
• Heinrich, C. J., Hoddinott, J., & Samson, M. (2017). Reducing adolescent risky behaviors in a high-risk context: the
effects of unconditional cash transfers in South Africa. Economic Development and Cultural Change, 65(4), 619-652.
• Kilburn, K., Thirumurthy, H., Tucker Halpern, C., Pettifor, A., & Handa, S. (2016). Effects of a large-scale
unconditional cash transfer program on mental health outcomes of young people in Kenya: a cluster randomized
trial. Journal of Adolescent Health, 58(2), 223-229.
• Pettifor, A., et al. (2016). "The effect of a conditional cash transfer on HIV incidence in young women in rural South
Africa (HPTN 068): a phase 3, randomised controlled trial." The Lancet Global Health 4(12): e978-e988.

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• Transfer Project website: www.cpc.unc.edu/projects/transfer
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TransferProject
• Twitter: @TransferProjct Email: tmpalermo@unicef.org
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