The global crisis has strongly highlighted the need to strengthen social protection institutions in developing countries, and especially in low-income ones. Before the crisis began in November 2008, a growing body of research had accumulated demonstrating a comprehensive knowledge base demonstrating that social protection programs are effective tools for reducing poverty and promoting human development. In the South, some of the new social protection programs with a specific focus on children have emerged. Children represent the largest group of the world's poor and, by investing in their development, social transfers help ensure a permanent escape from poverty. The focus on children signals the fact that social protection has as much to do with reducing current poverty as investing in the future (Barrientos & DeJong, 2006). These programs show considerable diversity in terms of objectives and program design. They can take the form of pure income transfers, as in the case of South Africa's Child Support Grant, while other countries have taken a different approach of linking income transfers with the provision of basic services. For example, Oportunidades in Mexico (formerly known as Progresa) and Bolsa Familia in Brazil, which provides income transfers to poor families on the condition that they regularly send their children to school and family members attend health clinics. In a smaller number of countries, as in the case of Chile Solidario, income transfers are combined with a wide range of interventions in health, education, employment and housing. Our focus on social protection programs is squarely on the children... in the middle of the paper... of revenue collection and redistribution mechanism, as important as they are. An optimal financing mix should perform three functions: (i) generate the resources necessary to establish and strengthen adequate social protection systems; (ii) ensure that the incentives generated by financing methods reduce child poverty and vulnerability; and (iii) ensure the legitimacy of social protection institutions and policies. The third section examines the main issues involved in financing social protection in low-income countries, starting with a discussion of trends in sub-Saharan Africa and the issues raised by the current global crisis; followed by a discussion of alternative political strategies adopted in three Latin American countries: the use of natural resources in Bolivia; budget surplus policies in Chile and indebtedness in Mexico. The fourth section concludes.