This is a valuable and timely collection of papers, perhaps most especially for the papers that review the experience with cash transfers, since these are now widely seen as a critical component of poverty reduction. Different papers review critically the use of cash transfers in many different nations (Russia, Malawi, Zambia, Kenya and Peru) and in different contexts, including their use after the 2005 Tsunami and other disasters.

The chapters in this book come from an international conference on “Social Protection Initiatives for Children, Women and Families: An Analysis of Recent Experiences” held in New York in October 2006, organized by the New School’s Graduate Programme in International Affairs and UNICEF. After an introduction by the editors, the papers are presented in three sections. The first section is on the key concepts and practices in social protection, and discusses the different terms used for this or aspects of this – for instance social welfare, social assistance, social protection, social insurance, social security and safety nets. Section II is on social protection with a strong focus on children. Among the papers included here are a discussion of social security for children in South Africa; meeting the needs of households caring for orphans and affected by AIDs; and social exclusion from schooling of scheduled caste children in India. All papers have an interest in who benefits and who is excluded in the different programmes discussed – and the success of various programmes in bringing significant benefits to children or poor families or pensioners is noted.

The papers in Section III, on cash transfers, review critically the usefulness of the conditions under which cash transfers are provided – and what these imply for coverage. For instance, the conditions attached to the programme in Russia meant that a high proportion of poor children did not benefit. The paper on conditional cash transfers in Peru documents both its successes and its weaknesses, including its inadequate coverage especially of dispersed populations in the poorest rural areas. It also discusses in some detail the measures used for targeting and their effectiveness, and how this programme meshed with public education and health services (this paper will also be published in the April 2008 issue of Environment & Urbanization).