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Extending Social Security to the Excluded

Are Social Cash Transfers to the Poor an Appropriate Way of Fighting Poverty in Developing Countries?

University of Bielefeld, Germany, lutz.leisering{at}uni-bielefeld.de

Formal social security in developing countries has long been centred on employees in the formal sector of the economy. The majority of the population has been excluded. Since the 2000s international organizations have called for extending the coverage of social security. This article analyses a recent strategy of extending social security, social cash transfers (SCT) to the poor. The article traces the rise of SCT as a global issue, then describes and classifies SCT in the global South, and inquires into the `appropriateness' (J. Midgley) of SCT in a development context. We find that SCT have spread to all world regions and that SCT covers a highly diverse institutional landscape. Evidence on appropriateness is inconclusive at this early stage of SCT. As yet, the call for social security for all is largely `decoupled' (J.W. Meyer) from the realities of developing countries. But the semantics of `SCT' has opened up a new arena of consensus and conflict in global social policy.

Key Words: development policy • exclusion • global social policy • poverty • social assistance • social cash transfers

Global Social Policy, Vol. 9, No. 2, 246-272 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1468018109104628


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