IFPRI (18.12.2024) In 186 countries worldwide, cash transfer programs are the cornerstone of social protection, outnumbering social security or pension plans. These offer critical financial lifelines to vulnerable households, aiming to alleviate poverty by providing steady cash support. However, these programs can become long-term fiscal burdens for governments due to limited turnover of recipients, particularly when the programs do not lead to lasting reductions in poverty. To address this problem, economic inclusion programs (including so-called “poverty graduation” programs) are increasingly being introduced as complementary or alternative approaches. Economic inclusion programs aim to provide a cohesive set of mutually reinforcing interventions to help individuals sustainably move out of poverty. Governments are also increasingly interested in seeing if these programs can “graduate” households from relying on cash transfers. Economic inclusion programs typically provide one-time asset transfers, financial inclusion interventions, skills training, and consumption support for a set period. Evidence suggests that they can be more effective than cash alone in empowering recipients to achieve sustainable income gains, potentially offering a viable path toward financial independence (Banerjee et al. 2015, Bandiera et al. 2017). Building on such findings, economic inclusion programs have gained traction, being piloted or implemented in more than 88 countries (Arévalo-Sánchez et al. 2024), with governments actively exploring ways to incorporate these strategies into their existing social protection frameworks. Egypt’s experience is a case in point. The country’s Takaful cash transfer program has been a vital source of support for millions, but fiscal space is too limited for cash transfers to serve as a solution to poverty (Breisinger, et al. 2023). The hope is that graduating current cash transfer beneficiaries will free up public resources to reach other impoverished households. To garner support for the new option, the government provided cash transfer recipient households with a choice: Would you rather remain eligible for the monthly cash transfer or opt into the economic inclusion program?