SocialProtectionReport

SocialProtectionReport

January 11, 2018

This study explores activist approaches to social protection, through interventions that tackle poverty by addressing the multiple dimensions of economic exclusion of the rural extreme poor in Cambodia. It explores the potential of so-called graduation packages, which consist of a combination of transfers of productive assets, vocational training and cash payments.

A quantitative analytical tool is developed that captures the impact of such interventions on poverty and income distribution, but also analyses their impact on local markets, through productive activities and trade, and, from these, estimates a series of macroeconomic impacts.

The results confirm the efficiency of interventions that include a productive asset transfer on poverty reduction. The micro-simulations also indicate that these programmes are likely to promote the inclusion of beneficiary households in their local economies as a significant share of their new disposable income comes from producing activities fostered by the graduation scheme. In turn, this has the potential to boost growth in the wider local and national economies. Both poverty and economic growth impacts are likely to last beyond the programme implementation period, as the catalytic effects of productive assets and professional skills persist after programmes have ended. These latter effects are over and above the impact of a cash-only transfer.

Document Type
Regions and Countries