Review of international evidence on promising policies and programmes designed to reduce poverty and social exclusion

The Wales Centre for Public Policy (WCPP) was commissioned by the Welsh Government to conduct a review of international poverty and social exclusion strategies, programmes and interventions. As part of this work, the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE) at LSE was commissioned to conduct a number of reviews of the international evidence on promising policies and programmes designed to reduce poverty and social exclusion across twelve key policy areas. The twelve areas are: take-up of cash transfers; household debt; fuel poverty; food insecurity; digital exclusion; affordable housing supply; transport disadvantage; early childhood education and care; youth services; in-work progression; further education and skills; and neighbourhood environment.

The key questions addressed in each of the twelve policy reviews are:

1. What effective international poverty alleviation policies, programmes and interventions exist?
2. What are the key or common characteristics/standards and features of these different approaches?

These two questions are addressed in each policy review by providing:

• The Welsh context for each policy area and main initiatives being undertaken by the Welsh Government;
• Detailed information on the relationship between the policy area and poverty and social exclusion;
• A summary of evidence of lived experience, which could help to understand how people may experience and respond to policy interventions;
• An overview of the international evidence of policy effectiveness (including case studies); and
• Challenges and facilitating factors associated with policy implementation.

Each policy review is accompanied by a shorter policy briefing summarising the key findings. In addition, an overview report has been produced which summarises the key evidence from each of the individual reviews, highlights connections between different policy areas and reflects on all the evidence to make a number of policy recommendations, or promising actions, within each of the twelve areas.

Duration: November 2020 to September 2022

Funded by The Wales Centre for Public Policy (WCPP).

The WCPP reviews and briefs are available to download from the WCPP website