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At the turn of the millennium, social protection became a new priority for both states of the global South and international development policy more generally. As, in the past, social protection policies were considered unsuitable for development countries, the elevation of social protection to the level of a preferred instrument of development marks a fundamental paradigm shift. This shift began in the late 1990s, driven by disenchantment with the results of economic adjustment programmes, the 1997 Asian economic crisis, and a heightened awareness of the negative effects of global poverty. Social protection thus became a preferred instrument of the Millennium Development Goals, while the World Bank promoted social protection as a key component of international poverty reduction strategies (social risk management). The Department for International Development (DfID) in the United Kingdom, along with other organisations, promoted a development model centred on the rights of the poor. Successful social protection programmes developed in the Global South – such as Brazilian and South African social pension schemes and conditional cash transfers (CCT) established in Mexico and Brazil – were adopted as model programmes at the global level. The purpose of this article is to analyse the emergence of social protection in development policies. From this perspective, it examines the various types of programmes promoted by the international community, with a specific focus on CCT. It concludes with an assessment of the relative appropriateness of social protection policies for developing countries.