Responding to vulnerability - the role of social welfare services and cash transfers

From a child-focused lens, effective social protection requires an understanding of the sources of vulnerability faced by children, and appropriate responses. One of the useful aspects of the increased prominence of cash transfers in the social protection debate has been to highlight the fact that for many children living in developing countries, economic poverty is a major driver of children's vulnerability and deprivation. However, without taking away from the crucial role of cash transfers, it is also clear that cash alone may not always be the optimum response to children and families' vulnerability. Social welfare services have an important role to play within social protection, but within developing countries this greater role faces two key challenges: weak social welfare services provision and the challenges of incorporating this into the already demanding social protection policy agenda. These challenges point to a number of questions requiring further research and learning.