this is currently the case in mexico and south africa where the number of benefits depends on the actual number of children or mexico and turkey in the old programme social risk mitigation project where the benefit is also differentiated by grade or gender of the children with higher amounts paid for secondarygrade children and for girls a similar approach accounting for household composition should be followed if such programmes have to integrate those programmes targeting the elderly this is likely to be the case when such transfers can empower vulnerable members within the household and the community who are discriminated against by informal institutions and when the stigma associated with the receipt of the transfer for these groups is lower in the case of targeted interventions country experiences suggest that there is broader political support for interventions targeting the elderly as the need to focus on this group seems clearer to the public and hence easier to defend by politicians