Suchergebnisse

Conditional cash transfer programs (CCTs) have become increasingly popular in low-income countries, particularly in Latin America. CCTs involve cash payments to poor families when they participate in educational, health-related, nutritional, or other services that could help lift them out of poverty. The apparent success of CCTs has led some development specialists to refer to CCTs as "a magic bullet." Conditional Cash Transfers in Latin America evaluates the effectiveness and reliability of CCTs in reducing poverty. The contributors synthesize evidence and analysis from four case studies of Brazil, Honduras, Mexico, and Nicaragua. Using state-of-the-art quantitative and qualitative methods, the studies examine various aspects of CCTs, including the trends in development and political economy that fostered interest in them; their impacts on education, health, nutrition, and food consumption; and how CCT programs affect -- and how their outcomes are affected by -- 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. Successful programs depend on a clear definition of program goals, adapting program design to a particular country's circumstances, effective communication with CCT beneficiaries, high-quality services, and an appreciation of social relations within a given community. This new study is a valuable resource for anyone trying to understand, implement, improve, and build on the success of established conditional cash transfer programs. ; PR ; IFPRI1 ; PHND

The point of departure for this thesis was that a social policy model based on social investment principles became dominant in Latin America at the end of the 20th century. Conditioning a cash transfer on requirements of human capital accumulation became the prevailing idea on the anti-poverty and development agenda in Latin America and subsequently in other development contexts. The policy model was built to tackle persistent and extreme poverty by attempting to reduce poverty in the short-term and by breaking the intergenerational cycle of poverty in the long-term. Nearly all countries in Latin America, and several others in the Global South, have implemented a CCT regardless of government ideologies and political perspectives, which raises interesting questions on the substantive content of the idea and its ability to appeal to such a diverse group of politicians and policymakers. In this thesis the idea of CCTs is studied from a broad theoretical perspective. I approach CCTs through the framework established most particularly by Jal Mehta (2011) who views ideas as problem definitions and as policy solutions. Through this framework I examine the underlying theoretical principles and assumptions that have guided the policy formation of conditional cash transfers, while assessing some of the factors that make the policy model so appealing to governments from different ideological backgrounds. The study is mainly carried out as a theoretical policy analysis, but in addition to the theoretical part of the study, I got an opportunity to study a particular conditional cash transfer in practice through a case study research strategy. The conditional cash transfer program of the Autonomous city of Buenos Aires, Ciudadania Porteña, is studied as empirical proof of the conditional cash transfer phenomenon. This study suggests that the policy idea of conditional cash transfers merges different social policy traditions and different, sometimes contradictory, theoretical principles. CCTs can be seen as representing rights based social protection, residual and cost-effective targeted social protection and economically productive social protection based on social investments. I argue that as hybrid social protection programs conditional cash transfers have the potential to gain legitimacy and appeal to a wide range of policymakers based on the underlying ideas that can be framed from different angles allowing them to be perceived as a proper solution to various problems, constructed from various perspectives.

A common criticism of antipoverty programmes is that a large proportion of their budgets never reaches the intended beneficiaries but is absorbed by administration costs. Yet, there is little empirical evidence on the costs, and even less on the cost structures, of such programmes. This paper outlines and implements a replicable methodology for a disaggregated cost analysis of a pilot conditional cash transfer programme in Nicaragua, examining the administration and private costs associated with a one-unit transfer to a beneficiary - referred to as the cost-transfer ratio. We find that for a meaningful assessment of cost efficiency, it is misleading to make calculations using only the typically available raw accounting data. Rather, one must delve into the details and specific activities of the programme. This is particularly important for pilot programmes, which typically have many upfront fixed costs associated with design and setting up operations. (InWent/DÜI)

Some claim that certain forms of social protection, conditional cash transfers in particular, result in perverse incentives for recipients in order to stay eligible for receiving benefits. This notion has a bearing on the design of social protection programmes and may undermine the political support for these programmes. This paper analyses Ecuador's conditional cash transfer programme, the Bono de Desarrollo Humano. The key finding is that concerns about perverse incentives appear largely misplaced. By examining broader patterns of institutionalization of occupational gender segregation, the role of cash transfers is found to be trivial to the deepening of informality and inactivity among recipients.

This article considers the geographic effects of conditional cash transfer programs (CCTs), focusing specifically on the ways they rework space, modes of production, and State/society relationships. While CCTs appear linked to neoliberal development and biopolitical governance regimes (viz., governmentality), this article highlights the counterintuitive reasons for why CCTs sometimes fail to meet these broader State objectives. More directly, despite obvious tactics of Statecraft behind CCT initiatives, the effects of these programs can in fact undermine their intended governance outcomes. Drawing from case study research in rural northeastern Brazil - where an overwhelming majority of residents receive Bolsa Família CCT benefits - this article examines the political geographic changes induced by Bolsa Família in a region that has until recently seen very little State presence. By engaging a geographic perspective that focuses on the political and economic effects of CCT programs, this article sheds new light on processes of governance and development in a host of countries throughout the Global South.