Social protection impacts, gaps and future research

The evidence base on the impact of social protection interventions in the global South has experienced an unprecedented growth, in particular in relation to cash transfers. This chapter takes stock and provides a broad orientation of what lessons can be drawn from the existing evidence base. First, it presents a gradation of evidence for the three most common social protection interventions - cash transfers, school feeding and public works - highlighting which outcome areas have received the greatest focus and where evidence is still lacking or most contested. It then provides a synthesis of existing systematic literature reviews on those outcome areas, focusing on the main lessons learnt rather than on the effect sizes of specific programmes. The chapter closes with a critical review of how the existing evidence base serves to inform policymaking in social protection, delineating the boundaries of what evidence can offer.