The provision of cash transfers to alleviate poverty may not be a policy priority for low-income countries, despite donor enthusiasm to promote such interventions as a cost effective social protection mechanism. This Project Briefing looks at cash transfers and political economy issues, drawing on case studies from Kenya, Malawi and Zambia, low-income countries which have started to implement cash transfer programmes in recent years. The research was carried out as part of a wider, three-year study by ODI on cash transfers, funded by the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation. In all three countries, cash transfers were generally perceived as an acceptable and appropriate response to poverty by key national stakeholders. However, there was little evidence of political will to provide cash transfers to the poor as a whole, and a strong preference for cash transfers that reach only particular sub-categories of the poor. Even within these categories, however, coverage is low in all three countries. It is only in middle-income countries – such as Brazil, Mexico, South Africa – that higher levels of coverage of target groups are achieved.