David Hulme

Armando Barrientos

Joseph Hanlon

* Argues strongly for overlooked approach to development by showing how the poor use money in ways that confound stereotypical notions of aid and handouts * Team authored by foremost scholars in the development field Amid all the complicated economic theories about the causes and solutions to poverty, one idea is so basic it seems radical: just give money to the poor. Despite its skeptics, researchers have found again and again that cash transfers given to significant portions of the population transform the lives of recipients. Countries from Mexico to South Africa to Indonesia are giving money directly to the poor and discovering that they use it wisely – to send their children to school, to start a business and to feed their families. Directly challenging an aid industry that thrives on complexity and mystification, with highly paid consultants designing ever more complicated projects, Just Give Money to the Poor offers the elegant southern alternative – bypass governments and NGOs and let the poor decide how to use their money. Stressing that cash transfers are not charity or a safety net, the authors draw an outline of effective practices that work precisely because they are regular, guaranteed and fair. This book, the first to report on this quiet revolution in an accessible way, is essential reading for policymakers, students of international development and anyone yearning for an alternative to traditional poverty-alleviation methods.

The Development Revolution from the Global South

Just Give Money to the Poor

Ian Gough

Graham Room

Peter Davis

Geof Wood

Philippa Bevan

Written by a team of internationally respected experts, this book explores the conditions under which social policy--defined as the public pursuit of secure welfare--operates in the poorer regions of the world. Making an important contribution by breaking away from the traditional focus on Europe and North America, it develops a new conceptual framework for understanding different types of welfare regimes in a range of countries of Asia, Latin America and Africa.

Social Policy in Development Contexts

Insecurity and Welfare Regimes in Asia, Africa and Latin America

First published in 1998, this volume initially focused on Chilean pension reform, on which the author has published elsewhere, before moving onto Latin America more widely, with coverage extending from 1990 to the reform in Costa Rica and the Mexican pension reform in 1997. It emerged in the wake of reforms including in Peru (1993), Argentina and Colombia (1994) and Uruguay (1996). Particular focus is given to the new individual capitalization pension plans, along with arguments on the ignoring of pension schemes and its consequences, the connection of pension schemes to the labour market and the impact of pension schemes on the least advantaged. The Chilean model in particular has received praise from the IMF and the World Bank and these Latin American pension reforms will be of interest as a paradigm for other countries.

Pension Reform in Latin America

The rapid spread of large-scale and innovative social transfers in the developing world has made a key contribution to the significant reduction in global poverty over the last decade. Explaining how flagship anti-poverty programmes emerged, this book provides the first comprehensive account of the global growth of social assistance transfers in developing countries. Armando Barrientos begins by focusing on the ethical and conceptual foundations of social assistance, and he discusses the justifications for assisting those in poverty. He provides a primer on poverty analysis, and introduces readers to the theory of optimal transfers. He then shifts the focus to practice, and introduces a classification of social assistance programmes to help readers understand the diversity in approaches and design in developing countries. The book concludes with an analysis of the financing and politics of the emerging institutions and of their potential to address global poverty.

Armando Barrientos

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