Document Library

Key Text Examining Conditional Cash Transfer Programmes: A Role for Increased Social Inclusion?

Author: Benedicte de la Briere, Laura B. Rawlings
Date: 2006
Size: 29 pages (173 KB)

Access full text: available online

Summary

Conditional Cash Transfer programmes (CCTs) provide money to poor families, contingent on specific verifiable actions such as children's school attendance or preventative health care. How successful are CCTs in addressing social inclusion and inter-generational poverty? What is their impact on social accountability relationships between beneficiaries, service providers and governments? This summary focuses on the Social Inclusion section in a World Bank paper. While CCTs hold promise, they are not a panacea against social exclusion. They should form part of comprehensive social and economic policy strategies and be applied carefully in different policy contexts.

CCTs are at the forefront of applying new social policy theories and programme administration practices. Unlike traditional social assistance programmes, CCTs address both short-term consumption needs and long-term poverty by fostering human capital investments in nutrition, health and education.

CCTs use modern targeting, registering and monitoring systems, and strategic evaluations. The programmes have achieved quantified success in reaching the poor and achieving short-term improvements. However, most CCTs have not existed long enough to evaluate success in longer-term objectives and reaching those longer term objectives will rely on complements to CCTs, notably in the supply of adequate health, education, nutrition and employment support services. The debate over CCTs' actual and potential contributions to social inclusion is spurring a rich variety of approaches to programme design and implementation.

Whilst some areas of the CCTs debate depend on long-term research, currently unavailable, there is already data pointing to both notable successes and potentially troubling concerns. The promotion of social inclusion through CCTs has three key elements:

Implementing national social policy to explicitly target the poor, including vulnerable groups who have historically not benefitted from public social programmes. CCTs are also often pivotal to more broad-based reform of social assistance, rationalising and harmonising pre-existing programmes for maximum effectiveness.
Changing social accountability relationships between different levels of government, service providers and beneficiaries. Local government is taking on social assistance delivery with increased autonomy. Emphasis is placed on co-responsibility between individual and state. Decentralised programmes are improving inclusion through increased service-provider accountability, stronger appeals mechanisms and greater community participation.
Holistic investment in children's human capital through synergistic health, nutrition and education programmes. Gender considerations are also included in the design through policies such as grants to mothers, higher payments for girls' education and encouraging networks of beneficiaries which have raised women's visibility in local civic affairs.

By complementing a focus on short term assistance with one on long term investment in human capital, CCTs have the potential to address persistent poverty and exclusion - but they must be part of comprehensive social and economic policy strategies and be applied carefully in different policy contexts. CCTs must be included in a strategy for broader institutional reform, particularly of pension and health insurance systems, and must link with programmes that support entry into the labour market for youth and adults. Complementarity strategies need to address limitations to CCTs by incorporating:

Mechanisms to accommodate households facing 'shocks' such as loss of income or illness.
Greater participation at the community level, which can be particularly important in strengthening programme accountability in limited capacity environments.
Better articulation with the supply of quality, accessible health and education services so as to realise the full potential impacts of CCTs.

Access full text: available online

Source: de la Briere, B., Rawlings L. B., 2006, 'Examining Conditional Cash Transfer Programmes: A Role for Increased Social Inclusion?', SP Discussion Paper no. 0603, World Bank
Author: Benedicte de la Briere , Bdelabriere[at]worldbank.org ; Laura B. Rawlings , Lrawlings[at]worldbank.org
Organisation: World Bank, http://www.worldbank.org/