Egypt’s experience bridging cash transfers and an economic inclusion program for sustainable social protection

Abstract

In 186 countries worldwide, cash transfer programs are the cornerstone of social protection, outnumbering social security or pension plans. These offer critical financial lifelines to vulnerable households, aiming to alleviate poverty by providing steady cash support. However, these programs can become long-term fiscal burdens for governments due to limited turnover of recipients, particularly when the programs do not lead to lasting reductions in poverty.

To address this problem, economic inclusion programs (including so-called “poverty graduation” programs) are increasingly being introduced as complementary or alternative approaches. Economic inclusion programs aim to provide a cohesive set of mutually reinforcing interventions to help individuals sustainably move out of poverty. Governments are also increasingly interested in seeing if these programs can “graduate” households from relying on cash transfers.