Abstract:"In recent years, social protection has emerged worldwide as a major new focus in efforts to reduce poverty and vulnerability. Since the early 2000s, conditional and unconditional cash transfer programmes have gained significance as key elements of social safety nets throughout Africa. The UN-supported Social Protection Floor Initiative (SPF-I) has helped place social protection as a key component of national poverty and inequality reduction strategies, supporting the realisation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and influencing the discussion of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agenda. In this context, Brazil is a long-term supporter of the SPF-I and has contributed its own recent poverty and inequality reduction experiences to the Initiative’s pool of best practices". (...)