This book offers readers a deeper understanding of the diffusion process of the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs in Latin America and the role played by experts and international organizations. CCTs have been increasingly implemented around the world in recent decades, and by 2010, 17 countries in Latin America had adopted them. The evidence suggests that this concentration is due to a process of policy diffusion. International organizations contribute to this process; however, the book’s main argument is that there was another, more important actor involved: a regional epistemic community that increased the availability of information about CCTs and reinforced their legitimacy, playing a role in the domestic processes of formulation and adoption. This book addresses the diffusion of the programs throughout the region; diffusion mechanisms that can help us understand the programs’ adoption (emulation, learning and coercion); and the impacts of key actors on the process (epistemic community, international organizations and policymakers).
Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs aim to reduce poverty by making welfare programs conditional upon the receivers' actions. That is, the government only transfers the money to persons who meet certain criteria. These criteria may include enrolling children into public schools, getting regular check-ups at the doctor's office, receiving vaccinations, or the like. They have been hailed as a way of reducing inequality and helping households break out of a vicious cycle whereby poverty is transmitted from one generation to another. Do these and other claims make sense? Are they supported by the available empirical evidence? This volume seeks to answer these and other related questions. Specifically, it lays out a conceptual framework for thinking about the economic rationale for CCTs; it reviews the very rich evidence that has accumulated on CCTs; it discusses how the conceptual framework and the evidence on impacts should inform the design of CCT programs in practice; and it discusses how CCTs fit in the context of broader social policies. The authors show that there is considerable evidence that CCTs have improved the lives of poor people and argue that conditional cash transfers have been an effective way of redistributing income to the poor. They also recognize that even the best-designed and managed CCT cannot fulfill all of the needs of a comprehensive social protection system. They therefore need to be complemented with other interventions, such as workfare or employment programs, and social pensions.
Summarizes experience with conditional cash transfer or "co-responsibility" (CCT) programmes in Latin America and the Caribbean, over a period lasting more than 15 years.
Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs are spreading rapidly throughout the developing world. Since 1997, seven countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have implemented and evaluated CCT programs with health and nutrition components. These are the subjects of this paper and include Brazil's Bolsa Alimentacao/Bolsa Familia, Colombia's Familias en Acción, Ecuador's Bono de Desarrollo Humano, Honduras' PRAF, Jamaica's PATH, Mexico's Progresa/Oportunidades, and Nicaragua's Red de Protección Social. Others are in the process of development in Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Panama and Paraguay, and around the world. While evaluation results are encouraging, features of program design are remarkably similar country to country, generating concerns that local realities are not sufficiently taken into account and highlighting the need for better exante analysis of the underlying development problem to be solved by the intervention. This paper will critically analyze the program effect model with respect to health and nutrition outcomes, present the health and nutrition evaluation results to date, draw some conclusions regarding the use of CCT programs to improve health and nutrition status and promote healthy behaviors, and suggest future directions for the use of CCT programs as an incentive to promote service use and healthy feeding practices. The existing literature well describes and analyzes the design and implementation features of CCT programs (Handa and Davis 2006; Rawlings and Rubio 2003). In recognition of these efforts, this paper will make reference to features of the programs when relevant for the discussion, and annex A includes a brief overview of these features. An annex on the methodological aspects of evaluation is also included as a reference. We also note that this paper focuses narrowly on the health and nutrition impact of the programs. The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. Section 2 highlights the basic design features of CCT programs, section 3 describes the key demand and supply-side factors that determine use and effectiveness of health care services, and section 4 outlines nine key assumptions that implicitly underlie the program effect model and current evaluation efforts with regards to CCT programs, reviewing and critically examining the evidence available about the plausibility of these assumptions. Section 5 concludes with recommendations for how best to move forward with CCT programs for improving health and nutrition as well as using the process of evaluation to improve design.
The regional workshop, held on 23-24 July 2009 at the Asian Development Bank (ADB), brought together people from ADB, its developing member countries, partner development agencies, research institutes, and civil society organizations to share their views and experience on social protection and its modalities, especially the conditional cash transfers (CCTs). The regional workshop served as a forum for discussing ideas, experiences, and information on social assistance and CCTs.
Conditional cash transfer programs (CCTs)cash grants to poor families that are conditional on their participation in education, health, and nutrition serviceshave become a vital part of poverty reduction strategies in many countries, particularly in Latin America. In Conditional Cash Transfers in Latin America, the contributors analyze and synthesize evidence from case studies of CCTs in Brazil, Honduras, Mexico, and Nicaragua. The studies examine many aspects of CCTs, including the trends in development and political economy that fostered interest in them; their costs; their impacts on education, health, nutrition, and food consumption; and how CCT programs affect social relations shaped by gender, culture, and community. Throughout, the authors identify the strengths and weaknesses of CCTs and offer guidelines to those who design them.
The Routeldge Handbook of Latin American Politics brings together the leading figures in the study of Latin America to present extensive empirical coverage and a cutting-edge examination of the central areas of inquiry in the region.
Drawing on a database of more than one hundred anti-poverty interventions in 47 countries, 'Targeting of Transfers in Developing Countries' provides a general review of experiences with methods used to target interventions in transition and developing countries. Written for policymakers and program managers in developing countries, in donor agencies, and in NGOs who have responsibility for designing interventions that reach the poor, it conveys what targeting options are available, what results can be expected as well as information that will assist in choosing among them and in their implementation. Key messages are: - While targeting 'works' - the median program transfers 25 percent more to the poor than would a universal allocation - targeting performance around the world is highly variable. - Means testing, geographic targeting, and self-selection based on a work requirement are the most robustly progressive methods. Proxy means testing, community-based selection of individuals and demographic targeting to children show good results on average, but with considerable variation. - Demographic targeting to the elderly, community bidding, and self-selection based on consumption show limited potential for good targeting. - There is no single preferred method for all types of programs or all country contexts. Successful targeting depends critically on how a method is implemented. The CD-ROM includes the database of interventions, an annotated bibliography (PDF) and Spanish and Russian translations of the book (PDFs).
