Tarek Ghalwash. A debate regarding in-kind and cash transfer in devel¬oping countries with reference to Egypt

Abstract EN

This paper reviews the theoretical and empirical literature related to the in-kind and cash transfers that are widely used as instruments of redistribution and social protection in developed and developing countries alike.

In brief, this paper will review the literature regarding current discussions about social policy and poverty reduction, and will evaluate the feasibility of conducting cash transfers by undertaking a systematic assessment in order to provide insights into whether cash transfer programs can operate effectively in developing countries, especially in Egypt, and to suggest how developing country governments might structure such programs to make them more effective.

The paper concludes that; (1) conditional cash transfer is a good policy for designing new social protection policy in the future for developing countries, especially in Egypt, but depend on setting of the preconditions; (2) the success of conditional transfer programs in Egypt depends on both the political will of governments to initiate them, and a broad political consensus to support them, so as to uphold efforts to fight poverty and underdevelop-ment,(3) Egyptian policy makers should firstly overcome the main barriers to implementing the conditional cash transfer scheme and set the main preconditions in order to ensure success.