Cash transfers for children—investing into the future

Abstract

Accumulating evidence from large-scale programmes is starting to show positive effects of cash transfer programmes on many levels. A new report by Save the Children, Lasting Benefits, highlights the importance of regular cash transfers, such as child benefits or pensions, as one crucial intervention to get Millennium Development Goal 4—reduction of mortality in children younger than 5 years by two-thirds—back on track. Currently, child mortality levels are either not decreasing or actually increasing in 27 countries. And even in those countries that are making progress, the poorest are left behind. National figures hide great inequalities. The report argues that three complementary approaches need to be taken to have the greatest effect: strengthening and improving health care; access to clean water and sanitation; and poverty reduction. Child health is inextricably linked to the environment in which children grow up. Children in poor households are more likely to die, more likely to have irreversible effects from poor nutrition, more likely to have poor or no education, and less likely to benefit from even a well functioning health-care system than children from well-off families. User fees, drug and transport costs, and loss of parental income are often insurmountable barriers to seek treatment or use preventive measures. Emerging data from cash transfer programmes, conditional or unconditional, largely dispel the counter arguments that these programmes prevent adults from seeking work or create a dependency culture which perpetuates intergenerational poverty. On the contrary, children—especially girls—from households given cash transfers are more likely to be in education, are in school for longer, and have higher incomes as adults. Immediate effects on local trade are also positive in most cases. Summarising the current evidence and modelling affordability, the report makes a very strong case to include child and maternal cash transfers, especially for young children, into the package of interventions to reduce neonatal and child mortality. Even more compelling is the argument that the effect of lifting households with young children out of poverty will last for many generations to come.