BACKGROUND The first policy action outlined in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is the implementation of national social protection systems. This study assesses whether social protection provision can impact 17 indicators of five key health-related SDG goals amongst adolescents in South Africa. METHODS We conducted a longitudinal survey of adolescents (10-18 years) between 2009 and 20...

International experience suggests that attempts to rapidly expand formal safety net coverage through cash transfers typically founder in low income countries, which must look to alternative mechanisms to boost social protection. This paper explores this challenge through the case of Vietnam. Despite over a decade of rapid economic growth and poverty reduction, approximately 40% of Vietnam’s pop...

Brazilian social protection programs have had consistent effects in reducing poverty and inequality among their respective target-groups: children, adolescents and pregnant and breastfeeding women. In 2011, the Brazil without Extreme Poverty program was launched as a strategy to eradicate extreme poverty by 2014. It makes the promotion of rights the core concept of the official political narrat...

Health insecurity has emerged as a major concern among health policy-makers particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). It includes the inability to secure adequate healthcare today and the risk of being unable to do so in the future as well as impoverishing healthcare expenditure. The increasing health insecurity among 150 million of the world's poor has moved social protection i...