Cash Transfers: Ladders or Handouts? An Analysis of Community Targeted Social Cash Transfers, Machinga District, Malawi

This thesis examines whether, how and to what extent social cash transfers help the poor in reducing poverty; not only in income terms but also in relation to how they build on their capabilities and address gender inequality, risk and vulnerability. The thesis explores these questions through an analysis of a community targeted social cash transfer scheme from Traditional Authority Mlomba, Machinga district in Malawi, using the capability approach as the conceptual framework of analysis. The study is located in the critical realist domain as its underlying research philosophy. The study is qualitative in nature, using semi-structured interviews, observations and life histories. The scheme targets the poorest 10% of the population who are also labour constrained and deemed to be economically unproductive. Thus, the study offers some insights into an area that is not well researched as it is a relatively new concept to target the poor who are also labour constrained and not economically productive. In this thesis, I show that despite the limited resource base compared to the large number of the poor, social cash transfers as low as US$14 per household per month can make a valuable contribution to the reduction of poverty through building capabilities of the poor, empowering women and addressing some of the gendered inequalities, risk and vulnerability. Therefore, social cash transfers are not just handouts but act as ladders that can uplift the absolute poor out of poverty