This Project Briefing looks at cash transfers and political economy issues, drawing on case studies from Kenya, Malawi and Zambia, low-income countries which have started to implement cash transfer programmes in recent years.

The research was carried out as part of a wider, three-year study by ODI on cash transfers, funded by the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation. In all three countries, cash transfers were generally perceived as an acceptable and appropriate response to poverty by key national stakeholders. However, there was little evidence of political will to provide cash transfers to the poor as a whole, and a strong preference for cash transfers that reach only particular sub-categories of the poor.