Cash Transfers and the Revenge of Contexts:

Abstract

Cash transfer (CT) programs are having something of a field day. In just over a decade they have become the main form of intervention channeled in the direction of the most vulnerable families in lowand middle-income countries (LMICs). Having originated in Brazil and Mexico in the 1990s, they initially spread to Latin America before being adopted throughout the world from around 2005. Their progression is spectacular: from three countries in 1997, they were implemented in twenty-seven countries by 2007 (Fiszbein et al. 2009) and, by 2016, in 130 countries (Bastagli et al. 2016). In 2016, CT’s share of total humanitarian aid exceeded 10 percent (CALP 2018).