Publication: Cash in the City: Emerging Lessons from Implementing Cash Transfers in Urban Africa
Loading...
Published
2021-01
ISSN
Date
2021-01-11
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
Poverty and crises are rapidly “urbanizing†. Yet experience with operationalizing cash transfers in urban areas is limited. This paper captures early lessons from a new generation of urban cash transfer responses to Covid-19 in eleven African countries. The analysis contextualizes such initiatives within a longer-term trajectory of urban social protection programs from the early 2000s. A range of lessons emerge around design and implementation, partnerships, institutions and political economy, strategic issues, and evidence and learning.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Khosla, Saksham; Gentilini, Ugo; Almenfi, Mohamed. 2021. Cash in the City: Emerging Lessons from Implementing Cash Transfers in Urban Africa. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35003 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Social Protection and Jobs Responses to COVID-19(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-02-07)As of January 2022, a total of 3,856 social protection and labor measures were planned or implemented by 223 economies. This constitutes a net increase of 523 measures, or 15.6 percent since the last update in May 2021. While noteworthy, such increase is the lowest among net additions observed over previous semesters. In fact, the global pace of measures’ introduction over January 2020-January 2022 has been slowing down. This report focuses on the real-time review of country measures in terms of social protection and job responses to Coronavirus (COVID-19).Publication Examining Conditional Cash Transfer Programs : A Role for Increased Social Inclusion?(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-06)Conditional Cash Transfer programs (CCTs) provide money to poor families contingent upon certain verifiable actions, generally minimum investments in children s human capital such as regular school attendance or basic preventative health care. They therefore hold promise for addressing the inter-generational transmission of poverty and fostering social inclusion by explicitly targeting the poor, focusing on children, delivering transfers to women, and changing social accountability relationships between beneficiaries, service providers and governments. CCT programs are at the forefront of applying new social policy theories and program administration practices. They address demand-side barriers, have a synergistic focus on investments in health, education and nutrition, and combine short-term transfers for income support with incentives for long-run investments in human capital. They also are public sector leaders in program administration, using modern targeting, registering, and monitoring systems along with strategic evaluations. Their impact depends on the supply of quality, accessible health and education services and may increase with strengthened links to the labor market, and a greater focus on early childhood and transient support to households facing shocks. CCT programs are facing a number of challenges as they evolve, from reaching vulnerable groups to fostering transparency and accountability, especially at the community level. Centralized programs have been criticized for limiting the engagement of local governments and civil society and it is clear that in limited capacity environments, a greater reliance on communities is warranted. In sum, though promising, these programs are not a panacea against social exclusion and should form part of comprehensive social and economic policy strategies and be applied carefully in different policy contexts.Publication Social Protection and Jobs Responses to COVID-19(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-04-17)Some key finds from this "living paper" include : As of April 23, 2020, a total of 151 countries (18 more since last week) have planned, introduced or adapted 684 social protection measures in response to COVID-19 (Coronavirus). This is a ten-fold increase in measures since the first edition of this living paper (March 20). New countries include Angola, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Belarus, Bermuda, Brunei, Chad, Grenada, Libya, Montserrat, Nigeria, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Seychelles, St Maarten, and UAE. Social assistance transfers are the most widely used class of interventions (60 percent of global responses, or 412 measures). These are complemented by significant action in social insurance and labor market-related measures (supply-side measures). Among safety nets, cash transfer programs remain the most widely used safety net intervention by governments (table 1 and figure 2). Overall, cash transfers include 222 COVID-related measures representing one-third (32.4 percent) of total COVID-related social protection programs. Cash transfers include a mix of both new and pre-existing programs of various duration and generosity. About half (47 percent) of cash transfers are new programs in 78 countries (reaching 512.6 million people), while one-fifth (22 percent) of measures are one-off payments. The average duration of transfers is 2.9 months. The size of transfers is relatively generous, or one-fifth (22 percent) of monthly GDP per capita in respective countries. On average, this is an increase of 86.6 percent compared to average pre-COVID transfer levels (where data is available for a subset of countries).Publication Cash Transfers in the Context of Energy Subsidy Reform(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-06-30)Energy subsidies, which have a long history of use by governments around the world, have been rising in recent years after a brief period of decline. Despite their significant wider costs, subsidies are used by governments for various policy, and political, reasons. Faced with recent external shocks, governments around the world have had to manage difficult tradeoffs between the need to protect their citizens against substantial increases in the cost of living and the fiscal risks that greater and continued subsidies impose. General consumption subsidies, such as universal price subsidies for fossil fuels, tend to be regressive. Over the past several decades, as part of the evolving understanding of energy subsidy reforms, there has been growing recognition of the potential of targeted cash transfers to support the poor and vulnerable to help governments achieve desired policy outcomes at lower fiscal cost and in a sustainable manner. The use of cash transfers to mitigate the impact of price increases from an energy subsidy reform puts a country’s social protection framework in the spotlight, along with the role social protection can play in bolstering national commitments to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. While getting prices right is important in eliminating distortions and incentivizing efficient use of energy, cash transfers can help countries mitigate and adapt to climate change and make the transition to a green economy by smoothing the adjustment to changing energy costs.Publication Cash for Work in Sierra Leone : A Case Study on the Design and Implementation of a Safety Net in Response to a Crisis(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-11)This paper presents an assessment of the first phase (2008?2009) of Sierra Leone's cash for work program based on a qualitative and quantitative analysis examining program design features, main processes and impact. The assessment highlights that while cash for work was an appropriate crisis response, the challenge of achieving good targeting should not be underestimated. Findings from the assessment point to high inclusion errors of non?poor population quintiles, despite the program apparently many rules of best practice in program design. The assessment points to a series of factors to explain targeting performance, and future strategies consider mixed methods with a greater emphasis on the role of communities in affecting overall outcomes. The assessment notes areas of success during implementation, including the impact of the program in promoting cohesion amongst youth groups, as well as women. In this sense the assessment points to future strategies and options for moving cash for work forward under its expanded incarnation of the Youth Employment Support Project. Through the use of light qualitative and quantitative methods, the paper also advocates for similar assessments where monitoring and evaluation capacity are weak and time constraints tight.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication (In)Formalizing Jobs in Latin America and the Caribbean: Taxes, Benefits, and Labor Market Incentives(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-10-02)Designing and administering effective national social protection systems have long been a challenge for policy makers worldwide. For decades, the principal objection to social protection policies was that they encouraged sloth. Today, voters and governments are less worried that taxes and social protections are unintentionally creating poverty traps than that they are encouraging workers to be static rather than dynamic or leading employers to be averse to using new technologies that can scale economic activity. "(In)Formalizing Jobs in Latin America and the Caribbean: Taxes, Benefits, and Labor Market Incentives" deepens the understanding of the incentives to informalize or formalize work in the labor markets in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), focusing on the interplay among personal income taxation, social protection, and labor market policies and how they all combine to shape firms’ and workers’ incentives to (in)formalize jobs. This book introduces a new conceptual framework to guide the analysis and inference—one that centers on individual workers’ decisions and in light of the value they ascribe to present and future benefits; their bargaining power with employers, which is determined by labor market competitiveness; and the government’s ability to detect and sanction evasion. This report provides a detailed mapping of tax, benefits, and contracting rules, which supports empirical analysis to identify and quantify incentives for (in)formal employment and to simulate how reforms to current policies and programs would affect these incentives. This analysis forms the basis for policy reform recommendations that would substantially improve incentives, so that more workers and firms in the LAC region choose to formalize employment and participate in personal income tax and social protection systems.Publication State of Social Protection Report 2025(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-04-07)Social protection goes well beyond cash transfers; it includes policies and programs that bridge skill, financial, and information gaps, aiding people in securing better jobs. The three pillars of social protection—social assistance, social insurance, and labor market programs—support households and workers in handling crises, escaping poverty, facing transitions, and seizing employment opportunities. But despite a substantial expansion over the past decade, 2 billion people remain uncovered or inadequately covered across low- and middle-income countries. Drawing from administrative and household survey data from the World Bank’s Atlas of Social Protection Indicators of Resilience and Equity (ASPIRE), the "State of Social Protection Report 2025: The 2-Billion-Person Challenge" documents advances and challenges to strengthening social protection and labor systems across low- and middle-income countries, analyzing the evolution of expenditure, coverage, and adequacy of support. This report details four policy action areas governments can embrace to maximize the benefits of adequate social protection for all: extending social protection to those in need; strengthening the adequacy of social protection support; building shock-proof social protection systems; and optimizing social protection financing. The report discusses how the path of reforms will depend on country context, capacity, and fiscal space. The rising frequency of shocks and crises calls for major investments in the adaptability and preparedness of social protection and labor systems. Amid a world in transition, social protection is more important and necessary than ever.Publication Poverty, Prosperity, and Planet Report 2024(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-15)The Poverty, Prosperity, and Planet Report 2024 is the latest edition of the series formerly known as Poverty and Shared Prosperity. The report emphasizes that reducing poverty and increasing shared prosperity must be achieved in ways that do not come at unacceptably high costs to the environment. The current “polycrisis”—where the multiple crises of slow economic growth, increased fragility, climate risks, and heightened uncertainty have come together at the same time—makes national development strategies and international cooperation difficult. Offering the first post-Coronavirus (COVID)-19 pandemic assessment of global progress on this interlinked agenda, the report finds that global poverty reduction has resumed but at a pace slower than before the COVID-19 crisis. Nearly 700 million people worldwide live in extreme poverty with less than US$2.15 per person per day. Progress has essentially plateaued amid lower economic growth and the impacts of COVID-19 and other crises. Today, extreme poverty is concentrated mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa and fragile settings. At a higher standard more typical of upper-middle-income countries—US$6.85 per person per day—almost one-half of the world is living in poverty. The report also provides evidence that the number of countries that have high levels of income inequality has declined considerably during the past two decades, but the pace of improvements in shared prosperity has slowed, and that inequality remains high in Latin America and the Caribbean and Sub-Saharan Africa. Worldwide, people’s incomes today would need to increase fivefold on average to reach a minimum prosperity threshold of US$25 per person per day. Where there has been progress in poverty reduction and shared prosperity, there is evidence of an increasing ability of countries to manage natural hazards, but climate risks are significantly higher in the poorest settings. Nearly one in five people globally is at risk of experiencing welfare losses due to an extreme weather event from which they will struggle to recover. The interconnected issues of climate change and poverty call for a united and inclusive effort from the global community. Development cooperation stakeholders—from governments, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector to communities and citizens acting locally in every corner of the globe—hold pivotal roles in promoting fair and sustainable transitions. By emphasizing strategies that yield multiple benefits and diligently monitoring and addressing trade-offs, we can strive toward a future that is prosperous, equitable, and resilient.Publication Global Economic Prospects, June 2025(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-06-10)The global economy is facing another substantial headwind, emanating largely from an increase in trade tensions and heightened global policy uncertainty. For emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs), the ability to boost job creation and reduce extreme poverty has declined. Key downside risks include a further escalation of trade barriers and continued policy uncertainty. These challenges are exacerbated by subdued foreign direct investment into EMDEs. Global cooperation is needed to restore a more stable international trade environment and scale up support for vulnerable countries grappling with conflict, debt burdens, and climate change. Domestic policy action is also critical to contain inflation risks and strengthen fiscal resilience. To accelerate job creation and long-term growth, structural reforms must focus on raising institutional quality, attracting private investment, and strengthening human capital and labor markets. Countries in fragile and conflict situations face daunting development challenges that will require tailored domestic policy reforms and well-coordinated multilateral support.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.