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Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion (PGI); Nutrition, Diets, and Health (NDH), Gender considerations in the design and delivery of social protection programs are critical to meet overall objectives of reducing poverty and vulnerability. We provide an overview of the policy discourse and research on social protection and gender in low- and middle-income countries, focusing on social assistance, social care, and social insurance. Taking a ‘review of reviews’ approach, we aggregate findings from rigorous evaluations on women's health, economic, empowerment, and violence impacts. We show there is robust evidence that social assistance has beneficial effects across all four domains. In addition, there is emerging evidence that social care has positive impacts on women’s economic outcomes, but scarce evidence of its impacts on other domains. Aggregated evidence on the impacts of social insurance are lacking. Key design elements facilitating positive impacts for women relate to gender targeting; quality complementary programming; replacing conditionalities with soft nudges; ensuring the value, frequency, and duration of benefits are sufficient; and gender-sensitive operational components. We close with a discussion of evidence gaps and priorities for future research.

Non-PR, IFPRI5; CPR2, PHND; PIM, CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM), Despite high-level commitments made by global stakeholders to advancing gender equity and equality through social protection, and the important role of this shared objective, there remains significant evidence gaps in understanding what this means in practice. We have proposed five priority evidence gaps to advance this understanding, related to: 1) programme design, 2) regional knowledge, 3) measurement and analysis, 4) cost effectiveness, and 5) future-looking issues. These priorities do not operate in isolation; each interacts with and should be considered alongside the others. We acknowledge that they are not exhaustive and are influenced by the type of research and viewpoints we bring to the intersection of social protection and gender. For example, understanding long-term, lifecycle, and intergenerational effects are certainly of importance, despite not being included as a top priority here. In many ways, setting out a research agenda for leveraging social protection for gender equality is similar to one which simply aims to make systems and programmes work better overall—no programme can fulfill objectives of poverty, inequality, and vulnerability while leaving half the population behind. We look forward to helping close these gaps.

Non-PR, IFPRI1; CRP2; 4 Transforming Agricultural and Rural Economies; 5 Strengthening Institutions and Governance, PHND; PIM, CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM), Over the last decade, social safety nets (SSNs) have rapidly expanded in Africa, becoming a core strategy for addressing poverty, responding to shocks, increasing productivity and investing in human capital. Poverty, vulnerability and well-being have inherent gender dimensions, yet only recently has gender equality been considered as a potential program objective. This study reviews the evidence on the impact of SSNs on women’s wellbeing in Africa, while contributing to an understanding of how SSNs affect gender equality. We first motivate and take stock of how gender shapes the design and effectiveness of SSNs in Africa. We then summarize evidence from rigorous impact evaluations of SSNs on women’s wellbeing across five key domains from 38 studies on 28 SSN programs across 17 countries. We find substantial evidence that, in many instances, SSNs decrease intimate partner violence and increase psychological wellbeing for women, as well as moderate evidence that SSNs increase dietary diversity and economic standing. We find minimal evidence that SSNs improve women’s food security and nutrition; however, few studies measure these outcomes for women. Finally, a substantial body of evidence reports on the impact of SSNs on women’s empowerment and intra-household bargaining power, however, with weak and mixed results. Our findings are generally promising, since most SSNs are not designed specifically to increase women’s wellbeing. However, the results show that household-level impacts do not automatically imply individual women benefit, and further that conclusions from global evidence reviews do not necessarily apply in Africa. There is little research that rigorously identifies the design features and impact pathways from SSNs to gender equality and women’s wellbeing, suggesting a priority for future research.

PR, IFPRI1; ReSAKSS; CRP2; CRP4, AFR; PHND; PIM; A4NH, CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM); CGIAR Research Programs on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH), Over the last decade, social safety nets (SSNs) have rapidly expanded on the African continent, becoming a core strategy for addressing poverty and vulnerability, responding to shocks, increasing productivity, and investing in human capital. SSNs’ popularity among governments and other stakeholders has been bolstered by regional evidence showing that they are effective at combating poverty and food insecurity, increasing resilience and agricultural productivity, and improving the education and well-being of future generations (Bastagli et al. 2016; Garcia and Moore 2012; Handa et al. 2018; Hidrobo et al. 2018). By 2017, every country on the continent had at least 1 SSN, with the number ranging from 2 (Republic of the Congo and Gabon) to 56 (Burkina Faso), and the average country having 15 (Beegle, Coudouel, and Monsalve 2018).