TYPOLOGY OF SOCIAL ASSISTANCE PROGRAMMES

Version 5 of the Database applies a new classification of social assistance programmes. Previous versions of the database employed a programme classification developed by the World Bank. The classification focused mainly on the functional dimensions of programmes, and reflected to an important extent operational practice at the Bank. The new typology focuses instead on the scope of social assistance programmes. It distinguishes between social assistance programmes providing pure income transfers; programmes that provide transfers plus interventions aimed at human, financial, or physical asset accumulation; and integrated poverty reduction programmes. Social pensions are typically pure income transfers. Conditional cash transfer programmes normally provide income transfers in combination with measures to improve service utilisation, health care and schooling for example. Integrated poverty reduction programmes, such as Chile Solidario, not only combine a wider range of interventions than conditional cash transfer programmes but also have the distinctive feature that the income transfer is not the dominant component of the programme. This new classification of programmes has, in our view, several advantages. It is a more flexible, and more accurate, template with which to identify key programme features. It provides a good entry point into the conceptual underpinnings of social assistance programmes. The three programme types reflect distinctive understandings of poverty: poverty as lack of income; poverty as deficiencies in assets; poverty as multidimensional. We would also claim that this typology provides a better handle for understanding programme dynamics.