Social transfer programmes do not throw money from helicopters.
Social transfer programmes have high set up costs and for this reason international assistance is important in low income countries.
Important challenges remain, especially in low income countries lacking the capacity to design, deliver, and finance social transfer programmes.
Brazil is the recent pacesetter, markedly expanding public education and systematically attacking remaining pockets of poverty through targeted transfer programmes.
Fernald, L.C.H., Gertler, P.J. and Neufeld, L.M. Role of cash in conditional cash transfer programmes for child health, growth and development: An analysis of Mexico's Oportunidades.
These sub-national cash transfer programmes were then individually scaled up to the national level, and subsequently consolidated into Bolsa Família.
Its political success helps to explain why similar conditional income transfer programmes have been adopted in 18 Latin American countries and more outside the region.
Child-sensitive social protection systems, such as cash transfer programmes that pay families directly, are also useful in helping eradicate extreme poverty among children, the report notes.
Despite attempts by the aid industry to take credit for these initiatives, social transfer programmes are most often national responses to local problems.
This is the premise behind social transfer programmes such as Mexico's Oportunidades, Brazil's Bolsa Familia, South Africa's Child Support Grant, and India's National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.
Poverty targeting, which so many cash transfer programmes rely on, will be more complicated due to a greater mobility of residence.
