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women enjoy their rights to social security and to anadequate standard of living. Provision of adequateand affordable social services—in particular health,water and sanitation and care—is essential to reducethe demands on women of unpaid caregiving anddomestic work and thus increase their likelihood ofgaining access to an education or an income of theirown.Social transfers are critical means to address povertyand inequality, particularly for women who areraising children alone, those who struggle to findpaid work in the face of widespread unemploymentand labour market discrimination, and those whoface old-age poverty as a result of a lifetime ofsocio-economic disadvantage. The growth andinstitutionalization of large-scale cash transferprogrammes and of non-contributory pensions,especially in some middle-income countries, are anencouraging development for women. But muchmore needs to be done to remove gender biases andmove towards universal coverage.Advancing substantive equality requires not onlygreater access to existing social transfers and servicesbut also radical transformations in how they areorganized and delivered.Second, social policies and programmes can beeffective means to address stigma, stereotypes andviolence. There are many ways to do this. Minimally,policy and programme features that perpetuategender stereotypes or social stigma need to beremoved. Social transfer schemes, for example,should not impose conditionalities that increasewomen’s unpaid care and domestic work andshould gradually work towards universal coveragein order to avoid stigma. More positively, policiesand programmes can provide incentives for mento take on childcare responsibilities and build thecapacity of health services to respond to violenceagainst women. In addition, governments and civilsociety can roll out awareness-raising campaigns tobreak down gendered taboos around, for example,menstruation in order to enable women and girls toeffectively enjoy their right to sanitation.Third, strengthening women’s agency, voice andparticipation by promoting feminist research,advocacy, legal action and mobilization as wellas women’s political leadership is fundamental toachieving such transformations in social policy andprogrammes. From the design of empowering cashtransfers in Brazil and Egypt, to the recognition ofcare in national policy-making in Uruguay andthe delivery of affordable and adequate urbanwater and sanitation in South Africa, women haveorganized and networked to define, claim anddefend their rights.The social protection floor (SPF) initiative is animportant step in the right direction, but care needsto be taken in the definition of priorities for socialinvestments. In their quest to define national SPFs,countries should conduct thorough assessmentsof the needs of caregivers and care receivers inorder to ensure that the expansion of transfers andservices contributes to the recognition, reduction andredistribution of unpaid care and domestic work.Realizing minimum levels of social protection for allshould be a priority for countries with wide coveragegaps. The idea is not to stop there, however, but toexpand the range and level of benefits as well as thequality of the services that are provided. Strategiesfor financing a progressive upgrading of transfersand services should therefore be mapped out fromthe start. The next chapter, on macroeconomic policy,discusses this issue in greater depth.185