Ugo Gentilini

Adaptive social protection (ASP) helps build the resilience of poor and vulnerable households by supporting their capacity to prepare for, cope with, and adapt to large covariate shocks. This book outlines a framework to help guide the design and implementation of ASP.

Every country provides some form of direct cash transfer to people in need, and this provision of money reaches hundreds of millions of people worldwide. But these provisions are often accompanied by heated debates on whether and how such assistance should be provided. Seeking a way to better understand the current global debates on cash transfers, Timely Cash provides a historical overview of the concept. It explores the 2,500-year history of cash transfers to trace the origins of cash transfer programmes, tracks how they have evolved over time and spread across the world, and considers the longstanding debates that surround them. By connecting these historical perspectives with the present day, identifying reoccurring patterns, and codifying diversity in experiences, Ugo Gentilini illuminates the roots of modern cash transfer dilemmas and reveals the surprising lessons the past can offer for these contemporary debates.

This white paper focuses on the policy interventions made to help people manage risk, uncertainty and the losses from events whose impacts are channelled primarily through the labour market.

People affected by humanitarian crises are in need of support, but what form of assistance is more suitable? Giving people money can be important, but that there are also merits in providing in-kind assistance such as food and shelter. Why and where to use one form of aid or the other is the matter of this paper.