Showing posts with label poverty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poverty. Show all posts

Tuesday, 5 May 2015

Poverty in Africa

Blogger Ref http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Transfinancial_Economics



Poverty in Africa refers to the lack of basic human needs faced by certain people in African society. African nations typically fall toward the bottom of any list measuring small size economic activity, such as income per capita or GDP per capita, despite a wealth of natural resources. In 2009, 22 of 24 nations identified as having "Low Human Development" on the United Nations' (UN) Human Development Index were in Sub-Saharan Africa.[1] In 2006, 34 of the 50 nations on the UN list of least developed countries are in Africa.[2] In many nations, GDP per capita is less than US$5200 per year, with the vast majority of the population living on much less. In addition, Africa's share of income has been consistently dropping over the past century by any measure. In 1820, the average European worker earned about three times what the average African did. Now, the average European earns twenty times what the average African does.[3] Although GDP per capita incomes in Africa have also been steadily growing, measures are still far better in other parts of the world.


Mismanagement of land[edit]

Despite large amounts of arable land south of the Sahara Desert, small, individual land holdings are rare. In many nations, land is subject to tribal ownership and in others, most of the land is often in the hands of descendants of European settlers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For example, according to a 2005 IRIN report, about 82% of the arable land in South Africa is owned by those of European descent.[4] Many nations lack a system of freehold landowning. In others, the laws prevent people from disadvantaged groups from owning land at all. Although often these laws are ignored, and land sales to disadvantaged groups occur, legal title to the land is not assured. As such, rural Africans rarely have clear title to their own land, and have to survive as farm laborers. Unused land is plentiful, but is often private property. Most African nations have very poor land registration systems, making squatting and landtheft common occurrences. This makes it difficult to get a mortgage or similar loan, as ownership of the property often cannot be established to the satisfaction of financiers.[5]
This system often gives an advantage to one native African group over another, and is not just Europeans over Africans. For example, it was hoped that land reform in Zimbabwe would transfer land from European land owners to family farmers. Instead, it simply substituted native Africans with ties to the government for Europeans, leaving much of the population disadvantaged.[5] Because of this abuse, foreign aid that was destined for land purchases was withdrawn. (See Land reform in Zimbabwe)
It is estimated[by whom?] that a family of four can be made self-sufficient for about $300 (U.S.) – the cost of an Ox, a few hectares of land, and starter seeds.[citation needed] Historically, such programs have been few and far between, with much foreign aid being concentrated on the raising of cash crops and large plantations rather than family farms.[6]
There is no consensus on what the optimal strategy for land use in Africa may be. Studies by the National Academy of Sciences have suggested great promise in relying on native crops as a means to improving Africa's food security. A report by Future Harvest suggests that traditionally used forage plants show the same promise.[7] Supporting a different viewpoint is an article appearing in AgBioForum which suggests that smallhold farmers benefited substantially by planting a genetically modified variety of maize.[8] In a similar vein is an article discussing the use of nontraditional crops for export published as part of the proceedings of a Purdue University symposium.[9]

Misused money[edit]

Over $500 billion (U.S.) has been sent to African nations in the form of direct aid.[10][11] The consensus is that the money has had little long-term effect.
In addition, most African nations have owed substantial sums of money. However, a large percentage of the money was either invested in weapons (money that was spent back in developed nations, and provided little or no benefit to the native population) or was directly misappropriated by corrupt governments. As such, many newly democratic nations in Africa are saddled with debt run up by totalitarian regimes. Large debts usually result in little being spent on social services, such as education, pensions, or medical care. In addition, most of the debt currently owed (approximately $321 billion (U.S.) in 1996[12]) represents only the interest portion on the debt, and far exceeds the amounts that were actually borrowed (although this is true of large debts in developed nations as well). Most African nations are pushing for debt relief, as they are effectively unable to maintain payments on debt without extending the debt payments indefinitely. However, most plans to forgive debt affect only the smallest nations, and large debtor nations, like Nigeria, are often excluded from such plans.
What large sums of money that are in Africa are often used to develop mega-projects when the need is for smaller scale projects. For example, Ghana was the richest country in Africa when it obtained independence. However, a few years later, it had no foreign reserves of any consequence. The money was spent on large projects that turned out to be a waste of resources:
  • The Akosombo Dam was built to supply electricity for the extraction of aluminium from bauxite. Unfortunately, Ghanaian ores turned out to be too low grade and the electricity is now used to process ores from other nations.
  • A two-lane paved highway was built into the interior. Unfortunately, Ghana has few motor vehicles that require such a superior roadway, and there are very few other roads of any kind in the country.
  • Storage silos for the storage of cocoa were built to allow Ghana to take advantage of fluctuations in the commodity prices. Unfortunately, unprocessed cocoa does not react well to even short-term storage and the silos now sit empty.
Another example of misspent money is the Aswan High Dam. The dam was supposed to have modernized Egypt and Sudan immediately. Instead, the block of the natural flow of the Nile River meant that the Nile's natural supply of nitrate fertilizer and organic material was blocked. Now, about one-third of the dam's electric output goes directly into fertilizer production for what was previously the most fertile area on the planet. Moreover, the dam is silting up and may cease to serve any useful purpose within the next few centuries. In addition, the Mediterranean Sea is slowly becoming more saline as the Nile River previously provided it with most of its new fresh water influx.
Corruption is also a major problem in the region, although it is certainly not universal or limited to Africa. Many native groups in Africa believe family relationships are more important than national identity, and people in authority often use nepotism and bribery for the benefit of their extended family group at the expense of their nations. To be fair, many corrupt governments often do better than authoritarian ones that replace them. Ethiopia is a good case study. Under Haile Selassie, corruption was rife and poverty rampant. However, after his overthrow, corruption was lessened, but then famine and military aggressiveness came to the fore. In any event, corruption both diverts aid money and foreign investment (which is usually sent to offshore banks outside of Africa), and puts a heavy burden on native populations forced to pay bribes to get basic government services.
In the end, foreign aid may not even be helpful in the long run to many African nations. It often encourages them not to tax internal economic activities of multinational corporations within their borders to attract foreign investment. In addition, most African nations have at least some wealthy nationals, and foreign aid often allows them to avoid paying more than negligible taxes. As such, wealth redistribution and capital controls are often seen as a more appropriate way for African nations to stabilize funding for their government budgets and smooth out the boom and bust cycles that can often arise in a developing economy. However, this sort of strategy often leads to internal political dissent and capital flight.

Human resources[edit]

Widespread availability of cheap labor has often perpetuated policies that encourage inefficient agricultural and industrial practices, leaving Africa further impoverished. For example, author P.J. O'Rourke noted on his trip to Tanzania for his book Eat the Rich that gravel was produced with manual labor (by pounding rocks with tools), where in almost everywhere else in the world machines did the same work far more cheaply and efficiently. He used Tanzania as an example of a nation with superb natural resources that nevertheless was among the poorest nations in the world.
Education is also a major problem, even in the wealthier nations. Illiteracy rates are high although a good proportion of Africans speak at least two languages and a number speak three (generally their native language, a neighbouring or trade language, and a European language). Higher education is almost unheard of, although certain universities in Egypt and South Africa have excellent reputations. However, some African nations have a paucity of persons with university degrees, and advanced degrees are rare in most areas. As such, the continent, for the most part, lacks scientists, engineers and even teachers. The seeming parody of aid workers attempting to teach trilingual people English is not entirely untrue.[citation needed]
South Africa under apartheid is an excellent example of how an adverse situation can further degrade. The largely black population earlier wished to learn English (black South Africans saw it as a way to unite themselves as they speak several different native languages).

Disease[edit]

The greatest mortality in Africa arises from preventable water-borne diseases, which affect infants and young children greater than any other group. The principal cause of these diseases is the regional water crisis, or lack of safe drinking water primarily stemming from mixing sewage and drinking water supplies.
Much attention has been given to the prevalence of AIDS in Africa. 3,000 Africans die each day of AIDS and an additional 11,000 are infected. Less than one percent are actually treated.[citation needed] However, even with the widespread prevalence of AIDS (where infection rates can approach 30% among the sexually active population), and fatal infections such as the Ebola virus, other diseases are far more problematic. In fact, the situation with AIDS is improving in some nations as infection rates drop, and deaths from Ebola are rare. On the other hand, diseases once common but now almost unknown in most of the industrialized world, like malaria, tuberculosis, tapeworm and dysentery often claim far more victims, particularly among the young. Polio has made a comeback recently due to misinformation spread by anti-American Islamic groups in Nigeria. Diseases native to Africa, such as sleeping sickness, also resist attempts at elimination too.

Lack of infrastructure[edit]

Clean potable water is rare in most of Africa (even those parts outside the sub-Saharan region) despite the fact that the continent is crossed by several major rivers and contains some of the largest freshwater lakes in the world. However, many of the major population centres are coastal, and few major cities have adequate sewage treatment systems. Although boiling water is a possibility, fuel for boiling is scarce as well. The problem is worst in Africa's rapidly growing cities, such as Cairo, Lagos and Kinshasa.
Colonialism concentrated on joining the coast with internal territories. As such, nearly none of Africa's roads and railways connect with each other in any meaningful way. Joining Africa's extensive railway network has recently become a priority for African nations outside of southwest Africa, which has an integrated network. Transportation between neighbouring coastal settlements is nearly always by sea, no matter the topography of the land in between them. Even basic services like telecommunications are often treated the same way. For example, phone calls between Ghana and neighbouring Côte d'Ivoire once had to be routed through Britain and France. Although Africa had numerous pre-European overland trade routes, few are suitable for modern transport such as trucks or railways, especially when they cross old European colonial borders.

Conflict[edit]

Despite other hot spots for war, Africa consistently remains among the top places for ongoing conflicts, consisting of both long standing civil wars (e.g. Somalia) and conflicts between countries (e.g. Ethiopia and Eritrea's border wars after the latter's independence from the former). Despite a lack of basic social services or even the basic necessities of life, military forces are often well-financed and well-equipped.
As a result, Africa is full of refugees, who are often deliberately displaced by military forces during a conflict, rather than just having fled from war torn areas. Although many refugees emigrate to open countries such as Germany, Canada, and the United States, the ones who do emigrate are often the most educated and skilled. The remainder often become a burden on neighbouring African nations that, while peaceful, are generally unable to deal with the logistical problems refugees pose.
Civil war usually has the result of totally shutting down all government services. However, any conflict generally disrupts what trade or economy there is. Sierra Leone, which depends on diamonds for much of its economic activity, not only faces disruption in production (which reduces the supply), but a thriving black market in conflict diamonds, which drives down the price for what diamonds are produced.

Climate Change[edit]

The link between climate change and poverty has been examined.[13] Climate change is likely to increase the size, frequency and unpredictability of natural hazards. However, there is nothing natural about the transformation of natural hazards into disasters. The severity of a disaster's impact is dependent on existing levels of vulnerability, extent of exposure to disaster event and nature of hazard.[13] A communities' risk to disaster is dynamic and will change over space and time. It is heavily influenced by the interplay between economic, socio-cultural and demographic factors, as well as skewed development, such as rapid and unplanned urbanisation.[13]
The level of poverty is a key determinant of disaster risk. Poverty increases propensity and severity of disasters and reduces peoples' capacity to recover and reconstruct.[13] However, vulnerability is not just shaped to poverty, but linked to wider social, political and institutional factors, that govern entitlements and capabilities.

Effects of poverty[edit]

High index values, indicated by lighter colors, show the relative poverty of African countries as ranked by the UNDP's 2004 list of countries by quality of life.
Africa's economic malaise is self-perpetuating, as it engenders more of the disease, warfare, misgovernment, and corruption that created it in the first place. Other effects of poverty have similar consequences. The most direct consequence of low GDP is Africa's low standard of living and quality of life. Except for a wealthy elite and the more prosperous peoples of South Africa and the Maghreb, Africans have very few consumer goods. Quality of life does not correlate exactly with a nation's wealth. Angola, for instance, reaps large sums annually from its diamond mines, but after years of civil war, conditions there remain poor. Radios, televisions, and automobiles are rare luxuries. Most Africans are on the far side of the digital divide and are cut off from communications technology and the Internet, however use of mobile phones has been growing dramatically in recent years with 65% of Africans having access to a mobile phone as of 2011.[14] Quality of life and human development are also low. African nations dominate the lower reaches of the UN Human Development Index. Infant mortality is high, while life expectancy, literacy, and education are all low. The UN also lowers the ranking of African states because the continent sees greater inequality than any other region. The best educated often choose to leave the continent for the West or the Persian Gulf to seek a better life; in the case of some nations like South Africa, many Caucasians have fled due to employment bias.
Catastrophes cause deadly periods of great shortages. The most damaging are the famines that have regularly hit the continent, especially the Horn of Africa. These have been caused by disruptions due to warfare, years of drought, and plagues of locusts.
An average African faced annual inflation of over 60% from 1990 until 2002 in those few countries that account for inflation. At the high end, Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo both saw triple-digit inflation throughout the period. Most African nations saw inflation of approximately 10% per year.

See also[edit]

Portal iconAfrica portal

References[edit]

  1. Jump up ^ International Human Development Indicators. undp.org
  2. Jump up ^ LDCs List. Un.org. Retrieved on 2011-10-31.
  3. Jump up ^ * A New Partnership for Growth in Africa
  4. Jump up ^ SOUTH AFRICA: Land ownership remains racially skewed. 24 May 2005 (IRIN)
  5. ^ Jump up to: a b In-depth: Land reform in Southern Africa. SOUTHERN AFRICA: Overview. 1 July 2003 (IRIN)
  6. Jump up ^ 3. Food self-sufficiency: Crisis of the collective ideology
  7. Jump up ^ With Time Running Out, Scientists Attempt Rescue of African Vegetable Crops. Future Harvest. November 29, 2001
  8. Jump up ^ AgBioForum 9(1): Three Seasons of Subsistence Insect-Resistant Maize in South Africa: Have Smallholders Benefited?. Agbioforum.org (2006-05-31). Retrieved on 2011-10-31.
  9. Jump up ^ Nontraditional Crop Production in Africa for Export. Hort.purdue.edu. Retrieved on 2011-10-31.
  10. Jump up ^ Aid to Africa at Risk: Covering Up Corruption. (PDF) . Retrieved on 2011-10-31.
  11. Jump up ^ Africa's reform efforts. Odious Debts. Retrieved on 2011-10-31.
  12. Jump up ^ Samuel M. Wangwe FOREIGN AID, DEBT AND DEVELOPMENT IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA. Economic and Social Research Foundation (ESRF). 29 July 1998. Paper presented at the UNU-AERC Conference on "Asia and Africa in the Global Economy" at United Nations University Headquarters, Tokyo, Japan 3 – 4 August 1998
  13. ^ Jump up to: a b c d Andrew Shepherd, Tom Mitchell, Kirsty Lewis, Amanda Lenhardt, Lindsey Jones, Lucy Scott and Robert Muir-Wood (2013) "The geography of poverty, disasters and climate extremes in 2030" London: Overseas Development Institute
  14. Jump up ^ http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jul/24/mobile-phones-africa-microfinance-farming

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]


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Tuesday, 10 June 2014

Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT)

Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs aim to reduce poverty by making welfare programs conditional upon the receivers' actions. The government (or a charity) 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. CCTs are unique in seeking to help the current generation in poverty, as well as breaking the cycle of poverty for the next through the development of human capital.


Countries[edit]

Conditional cash transfers exist in the following countries, among many others:
  • Brazil: Bolsa Família (formerly Bolsa Escola) started in the 1990s and expanded rapidly in 2001 and 2002. It provides monthly cash payments to poor households if their school-aged children (between the ages of 6 and 15) are enrolled in school, and if their younger children (under age 6) have received vaccinations.[1][2]
  • Chile: Chile Solidario, established in 2002,[3] requires the family to sign a contract to meet 53 specified minimum conditions seen as necessary to overcome extreme poverty. In exchange, they receive from the state psychosocial support, protection bonds, guaranteed cash subsidies, and preferential access to skill development, work and social security programmes.[4]
  • Colombia: Familias en Acción,[3] established in 2002, is a conditional cash transfer programme, very similar to the Mexican PROGRESA/Oportunidades, consisting of cash transfers to poor families conditional on children attending school and meeting basic preventive health care requirements.[5]
  • Honduras: The Family Allowance Program (PRAF II) created in 1998 was based on the PRAF I program created in 1990.[6] The Family Allowance Program, PRAF, founded in 1990 as a social compensation program of the government of the Republic of Honduras.[7][8]
  • Jamaica: Programme of Advancement Through Health and Education (PATH), administered by the Ministry of Labour and Social Security,[3] is a conditional cash transfer (CCT) programme. It provides cash transfers to poor families, who are subject to comply with conditions that promote the development of the human capital of their members. PATH was created in 2001, as part of a wide-ranging reform of the welfare system carried out by the government of Jamaica.[9]
  • Indonesia: Program Keluarga Harapan and Program Nasional Pemberdayaan Masyarakat-Generasi Sehat dan Cerdas, both established in 2007. The Program Keluarga Harapan is a household CCT program, while Program Nasional Pemberdayaan Masyarakat is a community-based CCT program. They are focused on reducing poverty, maternal mortality, and child mortality and providing universal coverage of basic education.[10]
  • Mexico: Oportunidades is the principal anti-poverty program of the Mexican government. (The original name of the program was Progresa; it was changed in 2002.) Oportunidades focuses on helping poor families in rural and urban communities invest in human capital—improving the education, health, and nutrition of their children.[11][12][13]
  • Guatemala: Mi Familia Progresa, established April 16, 2008, is a conditional cash transfer program that is intended to provide financial support to families living in poverty and extreme poverty and who have children age 0 to 15 years and/or pregnant women or nursing mothers who live mainly in rural and marginal areas of the peripheries of urban centers (cities).[14]
  • Nicaragua: The Social Protection Network, established in 2000 and implemented by the Social Emergency Fund (FISE),[3] was terminated in 2005.[15]
  • Panama: Red de Oportunidades is a program implemented by the Government of Panama to the population under 18 to provide them access to health services and education.[16]
  • Philippines: Department of Social Welfare and Development — Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program, is a social development strategy of the national government that provides conditional cash grants to extremely poor households to improve their health, nutrition and education particularly of children age 0-14.[17]
  • Peru: Juntos was established in 2005. The program provides a monthly dividend to mothers (married or single) living in extreme poverty. Mothers can only qualify for the program if they send their children to school and take them for regular medical checkups.[18]
  • Turkey: Şartlı Nakit Transferi, established in 2003 and implemented by the Social Assistance and Solidarity General Directorate (Sosyal Yardımlaşma ve Dayanışma Genel Müdürlüğü)
  • Egypt: Program Minhet El-Osra, began in 2009, currently being piloted in an urban slum in Cairo, Ain Es-Sira, and 65 villages in rural Upper Egypt by the Egyptian Ministry of Social Solidarity
  • United States of America: Opportunity NYC. ONYC ended on August 31, 2010. The program built on the conceptual framework and success of international conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs and was the first major CCT initiative implemented in the United States. The principal objective of Opportunity NYC Family Rewards was to test the impact of monetary incentives on children’s education, family health and adults’ workforce outcomes.[19]
  • Bangladesh: Female Secondary School Assistance Project, established in 1994. This CCT program, conditional only on school attendance and girls remaining unmarried, provides tuition and stipends.[20]
  • Cambodia: Cambodia Education Sector Support Project, established in 2005, is conditional on attendance and maintaining passing grades.[21]

Effectiveness[edit]

Few development initiatives have been evaluated as rigorously as CCT programs.[22] The implementation of conditional cash transfer programs has been accompanied by systematic efforts to measure their effectiveness and understand their broader impact on households’ behavior,[23] a marked departure from the limited attention that has been paid to rigorous impact evaluations in the past. Evaluation results are available for PROGRESA in Mexico,[24] PETI in Brazil and the Atencion a Crisis in Nicaragua.[25] These evaluations reveal that conditional cash transfers can provide effective incentives for investing in the poor’s human capital. CCTs have affected not only the overall level of consumption, but also the composition of consumption. There is a good deal of evidence that households that receive CCTs spend more on food and, within the food basket, on higher-quality sources of nutrients than do households that do not receive the transfer but have comparable overall income or consumption levels.[26] In Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Turkey, where school enrollment rates among girls were lower than among boys, CCTs have helped reduce this gender gap.[27] CCTs have resulted in sizeable reductions in poverty among recipients—especially when the transfer has been sufficient, well targeted, and structured in a way that does not discourage recipients from taking other actions to escape poverty. Because CCTs provide a steady income, they have helped protect poor households from the worst effects of unemployment, catastrophic illness, and other sudden income shocks. And making cash transfers to women, as virtually all CCTs do, may have increased the bargaining power of women.[27]
In the US, a paper by the Institute for Research on Poverty concluded in 2011: "Over time, we find that expenditures have shifted toward the disabled and the elderly, and away from those with the lowest incomes and toward those with higher incomes, with the consequence that post-transfer rates of deep poverty for some groups have increased. We conclude that the U.S. benefit system is paternalistic and tilted toward the support of the employed and toward groups with special needs and perceived deservingness.".[28]

Latin America[edit]

Many countries in Latin America are now using CCT programs as a major tool of their social policy since they have been proven to be very effective in helping poor families. Although the conditions and amounts of money may vary from country to country, ranging from $5 to $33 per child,[29] in general these programs provide money to poor families under the condition that those transfers are used as an investment on their children’s human capital, such as regular school attendance and basic preventive health care. The purpose of these programs is to address the inter-generational transmission of poverty and to foster social inclusion by targeting the poor, focusing on children, delivering transfers to women, and changing social accountability relationships between beneficiaries, service providers and governments.[30] Most of these transfer schemes are now benefiting around 110 million people in the region, and are considered relatively cheap, costing around 0.5% of their GDP.[31]
Conditional cash transfer programs can be very effective in reducing poverty in the short term since they have helped to increase household income and consumption in poor families.They have also worked effectively in increasing school enrollment and attendance, especially in middle school. A substantial improvement in health and nutrition of the children that benefit from these programs has been acknowledged.[32] However, studies by the UNDP have shown that conditional cash transfers neither represented a significant increase in the quality of education and in learning nor significant increased salaries, once the recipients entered the labor force.
Most CCT programs are very well-targeted and effective in reaching the poor and the excluded groups, notably the extreme poor living outside the reach of social protection programs tied with formal sector employment. On average, 80% of the benefits go to the 40% poorest families.[30] The programs have also promoted equality of gender since they provide larger funds to girls since they often drop out earlier, so it has increased their enrollment and attendance to secondary levels of education. In the long run, these investments may also yield to significant changes in women's empowerment and insertion in economic networks.[30]

Africa[edit]

While most conditional cash transfer programs are in Latin America, a significant amount of research has been conducted regarding the implementation of these programs in Africa. In addition, programs are looking to the Latin America for examples on how to implement these programs. While there are a few unconditional cash transfer programs in Africa being tested, two conditional cash transfer programs in Africa are currently[when?] being implemented. For CCTs to be successful, they require sufficient infrastructure. Poor education and health systems limit the benefits of CCT programs. Impacts should be seen in regard to the effectiveness of health and education institutions of the country.

Morocco[edit]

Since 2007 a pilot conditional cash transfer program has been researching its effectiveness in Morocco, organized by the World Bank. The program targets poor regions of Morocco with high dropout rates and should cover 160,000 households by 2010.[33] The pilot program is a comparative test that has four treatment groups. One group is receiving unconditional cash transfers, regardless of child school attendance. The next three are given conditional cash transfers to families of children grades 3-6 based on the child's attendance at school.
The three treatment groups vary in how attendance is monitored, ranging from monitoring attendance based on teacher’s report, all the way to a sophisticated system involving monitoring through biometric fingerprint machines.[33]
In addition, within each classroom, which parent (the mother or father) is randomized to see if the family benefits more from having the money targeted to one or the other. This study will bring research that assesses the importance of conditionality, monitoring, and targeting within a conditional cash transfer program.[33]

Europe[edit]

Conditional cash transfer programs are not used widely in Europe. In the UK, in 2011 CentreForum proposed an additional child benefit dependent on parenting activities.[34]

Obstacles and failed programs[edit]

Although the benefits of Conditional Cash Transfer programs across the world have been widely noted, there remains a series of obstacles to their success that have caused some programs to be stunted or terminated completely.[35]

External factors[edit]

According to a comprehensive study done by Senior Research Analysts Laura Rawlings and Gloria Rubio of the World Bank, the beginning stages of program implementation present the challenge of creating a reliable implementation schedule.[36] On many occasions, changes in political leadership, natural disasters, or changes in program administration have delayed the implementation schedule and lead to decreased efficiency or program termination.[36]
An example of the negative outcomes of one such delay is provided by the UN Development Programme's in-depth study of the short-lived Nicaragua's Social Protection Network. According to the study, the movement of the program administration to the country's Ministry of the Family caused a delay in efficiency and resources that, among other factors, led to the program's termination.[37] Delays can also be caused by difficulties in developing the Program Management Information System (MIS).[38]
One such delay in Mexico's Oportunidades program caused 27% of its targeted population not to receive any transfers after two years of implementation.[38]
In addition to unscheduled delays, other external factors that can hinder a CCT's success pertain to unexpected financial crisis.[39] According to a comprehensive assessment provided by the World Bank, the structure of Conditional Cash Transfer programs has not yet been adjusted to retain success in the event of a large financial crisis.[39]
Primarily, Conditional Cash Transfer Programs are not flexible enough to extend benefits to households that fall into the program's targeted population only during economic downturns. Thus, those not normally covered by the program's benefits may be harder hit than those who are but will not be able to be assisted.[39]

Exclusion[edit]

Another common obstacle to success in most CCTs is exclusion of needy homes in the targeting process. In an assessment by the World Bank, much exclusion was due to remote communities' inability to access schools or clinics. Many such communities fall into developing countries' most poverty-stricken populations but cannot follow through with conditionalities since the transportation costs to attend schools or hospital visits outweigh the benefits.[40] Furthermore, an evaluation of Mexico's PROGRESA- Oportunidades program addresses the issue that those in poverty with debilitating illnesses can also be excluded from CCTs due to their physical inability to accomplish the conditionalities.[41]
Exclusion has also been noted by both the World Bank study and the PROGRESA-Oportunidades evaluation evident in both community-based targeting and self-targeting approaches. In the case of self-targeting, used by Mexico's PROGRESA-Oportunidades, working women may be excluded from the program because they are unable to miss work to register or accomplish all conditions.[42] In the case of community-based targeting, the World Bank study notes that the extremely poor who may live in generally middle-class communities will be excluded.[43]

Distrust[edit]

Targeted populations' distrust of the program due to lack of adequate information has been noted by at least three case studies to be a leading factor in the Conditional Cash Transfer programs’ downfalls. The extensive study by the UN Development Programme on Nicaragua's Social Protection Network (RPS) reveals that the level of distrust of the program was so high that a domestic publicity campaign could have possibly saved the RPS from extinction.[44] This high level of domestic distrust was due, in part, to efforts to politicize the program.[45]
One report addressed in the UN Development Programme's study stated that RPS employees were approached by members of the government, who demanded that half their salaries be donated to the party in power. Although the RPS was successful in avoiding the threats, it was later revealed that the RPS was the only Nicaraguan institution of its kind not making governmental contributions.[45]
This same level of distrust is reflected in a study on the feasibility of a Haitian CCT made by the International Food Policy Research Institute. In the focus group they interviewed, almost all subjects expressed a "profound lack of faith" in the Haitian government. Instead, they preferred that the Conditional Cash Transfer Programs be implemented by community committees or NGO’s.[46]
However, this distrust in governments' ability to fairly implement Conditional CCTs fairly is not strictly limited to developing countries. In an article in the New York Times addressing the termination of the pilot CCT, Opportunity NYC, the committee leader of one of its lending institutions stated that people were distrustful and confused by the program's intricacies. New York City's deputy mayor for health and human services added that many busy and stressed households were not being able to handle the wealth of conditions they had to complete since they were not efficiently educated about the program.[47]

Unconditional versus conditional cash transfers[edit]

See also: Unconditional cash transfer
There is currently much discussion about whether conditionality, or conditions for the cash transfer, is necessary or important to a cash transfer program. Research, such as the pilot conditional cash transfer program in Indonesia called Generasi, examined the importance of conditionality.[48] One report looks at data from Mexico's Oportunidades/Progresa program, which looks at families who accidentally did not receive forms that monitor school attendance and therefore received unconditional cash transfers. It then compares them with those households that did receive the forms. It was shown that conditionality had the strongest impact on children's attendance to secondary school, as enrollment rates in secondary school were higher for those that received the forms.[49]
Another report on an experiment in Malawi is researching the importance of conditionality among families with school-age girls. The program was conducted, with data collected between October 2007 and June 2010.[50] It was found that the treatment arm providing conditional cash transfer programs had higher enrollment rates, as well as higher scores in independently administered tests of cognitive ability, mathematics and English reading comprehension. However, the UCT treatment arm had a much lower incidence of pregnancy and marriage among schoolage girls.
A strong argument against the conditionality of social cash transfers is proposed by proponents of a rights-based approach to development. From a human rights perspective, cash transfers are a means to ensure the human rights to social protection and an adequate standard of living for all members of society, including first and foremost the fundamental right to food. States have the duty to ensure those rights with a maximum of available resources. While reducing poverty in general, conditional cash transfers have shown to often exclude those who need it the most, violating the human rights principle of non-discrimination and equality.[51]
The following program in Malawi is an example of an unconditional cash transfer:
The Mchinji Pilot Social Cash Transfer Scheme is part of the larger Malawi Social Protection Policy and Framework, and began in April 2006. It is mainly financed by UNICEF and the National AIDS Commission.[52] The objectives of the scheme are to reduce poverty of people in the pilot area who are ultra poor and labor constrained, increase school enrolment and attendance, and to generate information regarding the feasibility of a cash transfer program as part of a Social Protection Programme for Malawi. The goal for this program is to reduce the ultra poverty rate from the 22% rate in 2007 to 10% by 2015.[52]
This program targets those households that are ultra poor (See poverty for definition) and those who are labor constrained, defined as either a household in which no able-bodied members 19-64 can work due to chronic sickness or disability or a household with one-able bodied member that has to care for more than three dependents. About 22% of Malawi as of 2007 was ultra-poor, living on less than 20 cents a day, and of that group 10% are labor constrained.[52]
The program would give anywhere from 600 kwacha ($4 US) monthly for a one person household to 1800 kwacha ($13 US) monthly for a four or more person family. There is also an extra bonus of 200 kwacha for children enrolled in primary school and 400 kwacha for children enrolled in secondary school.[52] The location for the program is in the Mchinji District, the 14th poorest district out of 28 in Malawi.
It was chosen for its average poverty level of all the districts in Malawi and its proximity to the capital, Lilongwe.[52]

See also[edit]

Specific programs:

References[edit]

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Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]

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