What Works to Improve Outcomes for Children?
Evidence on cash transfers with Social and Behaviour Change (SBC) programming in low- and middle-income countries
Highlights
Cash transfers are a type of social protection measure that help to reduce the effects of poverty through the regular delivery of cash to households or individuals. Cash-transfer programmes have shown positive effects on outcomes such as food security, household consumption and education. However, findings from cash transfer programmes have been inconsistent on other important well-being outcomes. To improve the effectiveness of social protection in addressing the multiple drivers of these outcomes, cash transfers are sometimes complemented with additional elements, such as in-kind resources, behavioural change interventions and links to other social services, often referred to as ‘cash plus’. SBC components of cash-plus interventions aim to address the drivers of behaviours that affect children’s well-being. This may be achieved by supporting individuals or communities to change their behaviours or by using policies and services to address the social and environmental barriers that prevent communities from adopting or sustaining behavioural changes.
This brief presents findings from a rapid evidence assessment on cash programmes with a Social Behaviour Change (SBC) component. The aims of this evidence assessment were:
- To collect evidence on the effectiveness of cash transfers combined with social and behaviour change (SBC) components to improve outcomes for children.
- To review evidence to identify which types of SBC are effective in improving outcomes.
- To identify the contextual factors that are necessary to successfully deliver cash-plus interventions with SBC components
