Cash Transfers in Context

<p> Marginal in status a decade ago cash transfer programs have become the preferred channel for delivering emergency aid or tackling poverty in low- and middle-income countries. While these programs have had positive effects they are typical of top-down development interventions in that they impose on local contexts standardized norms and procedures regarding conditionality targeting and delivery. This book sheds light on the crucial importance of these contexts and the many unpredicted consequences of cash transfer programs worldwide - detailing how the latter are used by actors to pursue their own strategies and how external norms are reinterpreted circumvented and contested by local populations.</p>