It is however, as you said, not a panacea for all ills, not even close. Overall, I think, it facilitates and helps in certain ways, but one has to be careful not to go through to the “foreign aid” side of things, which has everything to do with band-aid and nothing to do with sustainable development.

Cheers,
H.

In particular there are two articles you will find Interesting and hopefully they will shed more light on the questions you ask:

1.Dignity and Stigma among South African Female Cash Transfer Recipients:
The article concludes that the impact of cash transfers on social relations is large and often negative. Ttey argue that this is intrinsically important for wellbeing, but can also have negative consequences for material aspects of wellbeing, such as livelihoods

2.What do Cash Transfers do to Social Relations?

The article conclude that it is critical to support not only the material livelihoods of cash transfer recipients but also their human dignity, by investing in building rights-based policy environments.

My take is that Cash Transfer is being looked like what is called in the west wellfare benefits for the unemployed or familes without income. In Africa it is going to the elderly, disabled and orphaned children. In Kenya this is now in the new constitution. My take is that as long as the State is the one taken responsibility for this I have no issues. I do not think it will be right for Non State Actors Such as Plan and other INGOs to take up this responsibility. We can however engage in processes that will enable such groups know what they are entitled to and how they can access it and ensure that they can hold the state agencies to account.