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Summary Responding to poverty and vulnerability is a dynamic and constantly evolving area of work. Development agencies often possess extraordinary presence, knowledge and expertise of addressing poverty and vulnerability at the field level. The challenge is to ensure this good practice and innovation is captured and used to inform policy and programmes in an effective way. With funding from Irish Aid, the Centre for Social Protection at IDS formed a partnership with UNICEF to research how social protection programming can interrupt the intergenerational transfer of poverty (IGT) through investments in human capital (education, health, nutrition). The two main objectives of the research were: To enhance lesson learning within a multi‐sited organisation (UNICEF) around good practice in social protection programming and the potential for addressing poverty and vulnerability. To increase understanding of ways in which research and communication can be used to capture and improve good practice within a multilateral organisation. Research was conducted on three case studies: the Cash Transfer for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (CT‐OVC) in Kenya, the Social Cash Transfer (SCT) in Zambia, and the Child Money Programme (CMP) in Mongolia. Research aimed to understand which factors in social protection programming (e.g. design, implementation) account for success. The three country case studies were chosen because they are social protection programmes that are at different stages. The Zambia SCT is at the stage of scaling up design from a pilot to a national scale social protection programme. The Kenya OVC‐SCT is at the stage of expanding a national social protection programme. The Mongolia CMP was a national social protection programme that had been terminated, providing insights into why programmes fail to establish themselves in the long term.