Rachel Slater

Targeting is a much, if not the most, contested element of social protection policymaking, programme design and implementation. Debates and contestation often result in a limited view of targeting and universality as diametrically opposed when, in practice, most countries demonstrate a combination of multiple features and approaches to defining who is eligible for inclusion in programmes and how they are identified in practice. This chapter considers intersections between approaches to targeting – from universality to those based on demographic and social categorisations, to those focused on poverty, food insecurity and beyond. It examines the potential for different approaches to address headline social development challenges - of food insecurity, multidimensional poverty and vulnerability, and exclusion - and how mitigating both structural and life cycle-related shocks and stresses requires combined approaches. In identifying solutions to targeting challenges, the chapter emphasises that no single approach to targeting will be effective and that combined approaches are required to respond to a diverse range of settings in which social protection is needed and implemented.

In conflict‐affected situations, aid‐funded livelihood interventions are often tasked with a dual imperative: to generate material welfare benefits and to contribute to peacebuilding outcomes. There may be some logic to such a transformative agenda, but does the reality square with the rhetoric? Through a review of the effectiveness of a range of livelihood promotion interventions—from job creation to microfinance—this paper finds that high quality empirical evidence is hard to come by in conflict‐affected situations. Many evaluations appear to conflate outputs with impacts and numerous studies fail to include adequate information on their methodologies and datasets, making it difficult to appraise the reliability of their conclusions. Given the primary purpose of this literature—to provide policy guidance on effective ways to promote livelihoods—this silence is particularly concerning. As such, there is a strong case to be made for a restrained and nuanced handling of such interventions in conflict‐affected settings.

Performance measurement is increasingly important for UK third sector organizations (TSOs) driven in part by policymakers’ interest in harnessing them as deliverers of public services. This article examines a developing and little researched constituency of TSOs – community composters – which has become attractive to policymakers facing obligations to reduce, recycle, and reuse waste. The research, which included the first extensive survey of this constituency combined with a purposive case study investigation, found a highly diverse set of organizations. The analysis proposes five types of community composters and explores the challenges to developing a standardized measurement regime.

Social funds and large-scale community driven development (CDD) programmes are a popular policy instrument in post-conflict situations. This is partly because they are seen to alleviate pressure on governments to deliver development and reconstruction outcomes by transferring resources and responsibilities to community actors. However, part of their popularity can also be explained by claims that social funds and CDD programmes have the (transformative) potential to generate impacts beyond meeting basic needs, such as creating more peaceful societies at the local level and promoting trust in government. Drawing on a rigorous, evidence focused literature review, which began with researchers following a formal systematic review protocol, this practice note assesses the performance of 13 programmes against three distinct sets of impact indicators: (i) incomes, enterprise and access to services; (ii) social cohesion, stability and violence; and (iii) state-society relations. It is concluded that, although our understanding of the effectiveness of social funds and CDD in conflict-affected environments is limited by a low number of rigorous evaluations across a diverse range of contexts, as well as by an insufficient investigation of the relevant causal mechanisms, the findings so far suggest cause for cautious optimism.

Although first applied in the medical sciences in the 1970s, systematic reviews have been recently, and increasingly, used in the field of international development to examine the impacts of a range of development and humanitarian interventions. However, to date, there has been only limited critical reflection on their application within this field. Drawing on the authors' first-hand experiences of conducting eight systematic reviews, this article reflects upon the use of systematic reviews in international development research. It is concluded that although using systematic review principles can help researchers improve the rigour and breadth of literature reviews, conducting a full systematic review is a resource-intensive process which involves a number of practical challenges. Further, it raises a series of fundamental concerns for those working in international development, as well as the social sciences more broadly. Ultimately, systematic reviews should be viewed as a means to finding a robust and sensible answer to a focused research question, but not as an end in themselves.

Slater R. Cash transfers, social protection and poverty reductionInt J Soc Welfare 2011: 20: 250–259 © 2011 United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), International Journal of Social Welfare © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare.Cash transfers form an important and growing part of social protection programming in many developing countries. This article evaluates the use of different types of cash transfers in different regional contexts as a tool for reducing poverty and inequality in developing countries. Particular attention is paid to knowledge about the appropriateness and cost‐effectiveness of targeted versus universal cash transfers and about conditional versus unconditional transfers. The article finds that a fine balance is required. On the one hand, overambitious procedures for targeting or conditionality should be avoided where administrative capacity is low. On the other hand, to rule out any possibility of conditionality or targeting on the grounds of weak administrative capacity leaves only the option of universal transfers.