The full results of a new global review of the evidence on the types of social protection programmes best reach those living in poverty will be launched at a 14th March Socialprotection.org webinar.

Development Pathways, with the support of the Church of Sweden, has carried out a review of the latest evidence on the effectiveness of targeting of social protection programmes designed to support tens of millions of people around the world. Development Pathways analysed household survey data from over 30 social protection programmes in 20 countries across six UN regions, including both poverty-targeted and universal lifecycle programmes.

The findings provide comprehensive evidence on the relative effectiveness of different programmes to inform the ongoing debate that is raging on whether poverty-targeting can support the global objective of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Stephen Kidd, Senior Social Policy Specialist, Development Pathways, will set out the results at the webinar, after outlining the headline results at the UNICEF, ILO and ODI Universal Child Grant conference last month. Representatives of the World Bank argued for a poverty-targeted approach at the event to discuss increasing social protection coverage of children.

The results come as the IMF considers a new framework for social protection which IMF economist David Coady said at the UCG event would need to better consider the long-term impact. They add to the body of evidence on the effectiveness of targeting after work published by the ILO and Development Pathways in 2017 on the Proxy Means Test demonstrated very high targeting errors of PMTs.

Magdalena Sepúlveda Carmona, former UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, and Andrew Fischer of the Institute of Social Studies at The Hague, will set out their responses on the new findings and their implications for those working on social protection programmes worldwide.

To participate in the Socialprotection.org webinar at 5pm GMT on 14th March, New evidence on the effectiveness of targeting and receive the final report on the work, register by clicking here.