Summary (English)

The report addresses social assistance, and follows a new typology that distinguishes between programmes that provide pure income transfers; programmes that provide income transfers plus policy interventions aimed at enhancing human, financial and physical assets; and integrated poverty reduction programmes. The report pays special attention to the extent to which emerging social assistance programmes in the South address chronic poverty, as the latter subject remains a major challenge for antipoverty policy interventions.

The report analyses three policy questions: first, do programme objectives address chronic poverty? Second, are programme design features - the identification and selection of beneficiaries, delivery mechanisms and complementary interventions - effective in reaching chronically poor households? And third, do social assistance programmes benefit the chronically poor?

This report is aimed to policy makers in presidents' and prime ministers' offices, ministries of finance and planning, as well as the ministries and agencies charged with developing or refining social transfer programmes. It can also be of interest to donor agencies supporting such policies and programmes.