CHAPTER III – REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE / STUDIES

Related Studies

Oportunidades is a government social assistance program in Mexico founded in 2002,

based on a previous program called Progresa, created in 1997. It is designed to target poverty by

providing cash payments to families in exchange for regular school attendance, health clinic

visits, and nutrition support. Oportunidades is credited with decreasing poverty and improving

health and educational attainment in regions where it has been deployed.

Bolsa Família is a social welfare program of the Brazilian government, part of the Fome

Zero network of federal assistance programs. Bolsa Família provides financial aid to poor

Brazilian families; if they have children, families must ensure that the children attend school and

are vaccinated. If they exceed the total of permitted school absences, they are dropped from the

program and their funds are suspended. The program attempts to both reduce short-term poverty

by direct cash transfers and fight long-term poverty by increasing human capital among the poor

through conditional cash transfers. It also works to give free education to children who cannot

afford to go to school to show the importance of education.

Progresa involves a cash transfer that is conditional on the recipient household engaging

in a set of behaviors designed to improve health and nutrition. The family only receives the cash

transfer if every family member accepts preventive medical care, children age 0-5 and lactating

mothers attend nutrition monitoring clinics where growth is measured, nutrition supplements are

distributed, and they are provided education on nutrition and hygiene, and pregnant women visit

clinics to obtain prenatal care, nutritional supplements, and health education. The size of the cash

transfer is large, corresponding on average to one third of household income for the beneficiary
families. Another unique feature of the program is that the cash transfers are given to the mother

of the family.

The Female Secondary School Assistance Project (FSSAP) was jointly initiated by the

World Bank and the Government of Bangladesh (GOB) in 1993. The project attempted to

address gender disparity in secondary education and thereby increase the number of educated

women capable of participating fully in the economic and social development of the country.

The primary component of FSSAP was the Stipend and Tuition program that ensured provision

of monthly stipends to girl students from Grade 6 to Grade 10, that is, students 11 to 15 years

old. The stipends covered the direct costs of schooling—one of the primary factors inhibiting the

enrollment of girls at secondary level.1

Each stipend recipient was allotted a passbook and could independently transact and

withdraw cash from the bank. An extensive information campaign attempted to raise public

awareness on the importance of female education and the ensuing social and financial benefits.

The project also took steps to enhance the school infrastructure, recruit female teachers and

provide occupational training to girls leaving school.

Community participation in the project was encouraged through community membership in

parent-teacher associations that regularly met to address project related issues.

The Chile Solidario (Chile’s social protection system) system promotes the incorporation of

families and people living in extreme poverty in to social networks as well as providing access to

better living conditions in order to overcome poverty. Chile Solidario works through its own

programs so as to create connections and empower people and these function as instruments that
work in intermediation, counseling and support. It entails specialized services for psychosocial

support, which through specific socio-educational methodologies, proposes orientation and

accompaniment so as to facilitate the process of social integration for families and individuals.

The program includes the provision of cash transfers, subsidies and solidarity pensions.

The mission of Familias en Acción is to promote empowerment and holistic family well being

for Latinos through compassionate community engagement, education, research, and advocacy

for social change.

Mi Familia Progresa:</i> change and continuity in Guatemala’s social policy by Elena Gaia

This chapter provides an appraisal of a significant policy innovation in a developing

country, Guatemala. It provides a detailed analysis of the design and implementation of

Guatemala's CCT (conditional cash transfer) programme, Mi Familia Progresa. It observes that

while the programme is the first that has been deliberately targeted at the poorest sectors of the

population, thereby mitigating the regressive nature of previously existing social policy, and the

chapter concludes that there is more continuity with previous residual approaches than there is

change. It provides an important contribution to the understanding of the challenges of

developing effective social policies in countries like Guatemala, where extreme poverty and

inequality often exist alongside entrenched power differentials in a context of economic under-

development.
For Hondurans living in extreme poverty, survival can be a daily challenge. In the country’s poor

rural western region, food is scarce and often insufficient to share among family members,

forcing many children to live with chronic malnutrition. Many parents put their sons to work in

the coffee fields. Their daughters marry young and give birth early, contributing to high fertility

rates and completing the cycle of poverty. Far from cities and high-quality health services, and

lacking modern infrastructure, electricity, and improved sanitation, the daily toil and deprivation

are difficult to escape.

In 1990, facing deep poverty in the country’s rural regions, the Honduran government began

experimenting with cash transfers for social protection. That year, Honduras introduced the first

iteration of its Programa de Asignación Familiar (“Family Allowance Program”) or PRAF-I,

aiming to compensate the poorest families for losses incurred under structural adjustment

policies. However, by the late 1990s, it had become clear that the program was not fulfilling its

potential due to a lack of targeting and a lack of enforcement of the conditions for receiving a

voucher, among other reasons.

When PRAF-I failed to make a dent in overall poverty, the Inter-American Development Bank

(IDB) theorized a new approach was needed—one that explicitly focused on increasing human

capital among the poorest Hondurans, with clear metrics for success and a sound strategy to

evaluate whether it was achieving its objectives. In 1998, the IDB negotiated a $45 million loan

to Honduras to help initiative a new version of the program called PRAF-II.

Yet missteps begot more missteps: although PRAF-II corrected some of its predecessor’s

deficiencies, new design flaws created new and unanticipated problems, with mixed and even

adverse consequences for beneficiaries’ health. A midterm impact evaluation conducted by

International Food Policy Research Institute suggested a mixed bag of effects. Although there

were modest gains in the utilization of health services among transfer recipients, they saw no

improvements in health outcomes such as stunting, anemia, and diarrhea. Later, in 2007, another

research team reveleaed that PRAF-II may have induced an unintended negative effect: increased

birthrates in PRAF-II treatment areas.

The sources of PRAF-II disappointment are manifold, but the small transfer size, the possible

creation of a perverse incentive, and weak institutional capacity deserve much of the blame. The

PRAF experience shows how cash transfers can lead to unintended consequences, mainly related

to poor design choices. Regular monitoring of program implementation is critical to avoid

pitfalls and identify adverse effects early, so that program design can be modified and corrected.

The Honduran story is one of learning while doing and constant iteration over two decades—

while still achieving mixed results.

by the Social Emergency Fund (FISE)

Program Keluarga Harapan (PKH) Family Hope Program, the Indonesian Conditional Cash

Transfer Program. It is a social assistance with some conditionality’s to the poorest households

which have expecting or lactating mothers and children between 0-15 years old.

Indonesia's PNPM Generasi Program, Indonesia has made remarkable strides in key human

development indicators over the past few decades. Primary school enrollment is close to
universal for both boys and girls, and the child mortality rate has declined rapidly. Nevertheless,

infant mortality, child malnutrition, maternal mortality, junior secondary school enrollment, and

educational learning quality have all remained problematic in Indonesia compared to other

countries in the region. Furthermore, achievements in these indicators reveal large geographical

disparities, with poorer outcomes in rural and remote provinces and districts. Improving access

to basic quality health and education services is a key component of an overall poverty reduction

strategy for Indonesia. In 2007, the government of Indonesia launched two large-scale pilots of

programs designed to tackle these issues: conditional cash transfers (CCTs) to households,

known as the Hopeful Family Program (Keluarga Harapan Program or PKH), and (2) an

incentivized community block grant program, known as the National Community Empowerment

Program Healthy and Smart Generation (Program Nasional Pemberdayaan Masyarakat Generasi

Sehat dan Cerdas, or PNPM Generasi). These two complementary pilot projects began in six

provinces and are designed to target the same health and education indicators. They are

consistent with both the Indonesian government's priorities and the millennium development

goals: to reduce poverty, maternal mortality, and child mortality, and to ensure universal

coverage of basic education. PKH focused more on supply-side ready areas, predominantly

urban and in Java, while PNPM Generasi operated in rural areas. This study reports on the final

evaluation of the incentivized community block grant program, PNPM Generasi. A separate

report has been prepared by the World Bank on the results of the PKH program. This document

describes the findings from the three-wave evaluation series carried out from 2007 to 2010. The

baseline survey took place from June 2007 to August 2007. The second wave was conducted

from October 2008 to January 2009, after 15 to 18 months of Generasi implementation. The third

and final evaluation survey was implemented from October 2009 to January 2010 after 27 to 30
months of project implementation. Over 45,000 household members, village heads, and school

and health facility staff were respondents for the third and final round of survey.

The Programme of Advancement Through Health and Education (PATH) is a conditional cash

transfer (CCT) programme funded by the Government of Jamaica and the World Bank and is

aimed at delivering benefits by way of cash grants to the most needy and vulnerable in the

society. PATH was introduced islandwide in 2002. It seeks to rationalize the operations of three

(3) then existing income transfer programmes in order to eliminate duplication, reduce

administrative costs, streamline the use of resources, and increase the effectiveness of

programme delivery to the poor.

Social protection systems help individuals and families, especially the poor and vulnerable, cope

with crises and shocks, find jobs, improve productivity, invest in the health and education of

their children, and protect the aging population. The World Bank Group supports universal

access to social protection, and is central to its goals of ending poverty and boosting shared

prosperity.

Universal social protection coverage includes: providing social assistance through cash transfers

to those who need them, especially children; benefits and support for people of working age in

case of maternity, disability, work injury or for those without jobs; and pension coverage for the

elderly. Assistance is provided through social insurance, tax-funded social benefits, social
assistance services, public works programs and other schemes guaranteeing basic income

security.

Social protection systems, figure prominently in the UN Sustainable Development Goals

(SDGs). Goal 1.3 calls for the implementation of “nationally appropriate social protection

systems and measures for all, including floors, and by 2030 achieve substantial coverage of the

poor and vulnerable”.

Social protection systems that are well-designed and implemented can powerfully shape

countries, enhance human capital and productivity, reduce inequalities, build resilience and end

inter-generational cycle of poverty. Such systems and tools are transformative as they not only

help the poor and most vulnerable mitigate economic and fiscal shocks, but also help ensure

equality of opportunity by giving them a chance to climb out of poverty, and become productive

members of society. When poor and vulnerable people have the opportunity to improve their

lives and that of their families, and are less likely to move in search of a better life.Well-designed

social protection programs are cost-effective, costing countries on average about 1.6 percent of

GDP.

The World Bank Group’s annual lending on social protection programs as of September 2017

reached $13.5 billion with $8.4 billion lending in IDA countries, targeting the world’s poorest.
These resources support safety net programs, including cash transfers, public works, and school

feeding programs.

Jobs, too, are critical in reducing poverty and promoting prosperity. All countries, regardless of

income, face challenges creating and sustaining adequate job opportunities for their citizens. The

World Bank Group is ensuring that individuals are equipped and trained with the right skills for

the labor market. Today, our social protection systems not only deliver social assistance and

insurance to the poor and vulnerable, but are also used to link them to jobs, improve

productivity, invest in the health and education of their children, and protect the aging

population. After important achievements designing and promoting the adoption of social

assistance programs and delivery systems, SPJ is investing heavily in initiatives to improve jobs

and earnings opportunities and the expansion of social insurance programs.

RED DE OPORTUNIDADES: CONDITIONAL CASH TRANSFER EVIDENCE FROM

PANAMA - I. Arraiz, S. Rozo

This paper estimates the impact of the conditional cash transfer program, Red de oprtunidades,

on school enrollment and child labor in Panama. The analysis relies on data from the Living

Standards Measurement Survey of 2008. It uses a propensity score matching technique to

identify the impact of the program in rural and indigenous areas of the country by replicating the

selection criteria followed by the government to identify potential beneficiaries of the program.

Our results show that the program increased school enrollment in rural and indigenous areas and

was able to reduce child labor only in rural areas. A further analysis by education level
(elementary, middle, and high school) shows that, in rural areas, the effect of the program is

limited to middle school enrollment: participation in the program increases enrollment by 7%

over children that do not participate in the program (there is no difference on elementary school

and high school enrollment between children participating and children no participating in the

program). Results found over child labor support this conclusion: specifically, the program

reduces child labor through a decline in work in children ages 12 to 15 in rural areas (which

corresponds to the ages of children attending middle school). In indigenous areas the program

increases enrollment only in elementary school by approximately 9.3%. We found no evidence

of positive effects of the program over child labor in indigenous areas. This suggests indigenous

children start working when they leave elementary school and the program has not been able to

reverse this trend.

Conditional Cash Transfers In Peru: Tackling The Multi-Dimensionality Of Poverty And

Vulnerability

Nicola Jones, Rosana Vargas and Eliana Villar

In the context of significant international attention on poverty reduction and realizing the Millennium

Development Goals, social protection mechanisms are increasingly seen as an important policy tool to

tackle poverty, vulnerability and social exclusion.2 Within the broad field of social protection, cash

transfers are instruments attracting much interest and attention, and have been particularly pioneered

in Latin America.3 Peru, recently followed the example of Mexico, Chile, Brazil and Honduras by

launching its first conditional cash transfer program, Juntos (“Together”), in February 2005. By targeting

poor children under the age of 14 years, the aim is to promote human capital development and to help
break life-course and intergenerational transfers of poverty by facilitating households’ capacities to

ensure children’s rights to adequate nutrition, healthcare and education.

In accordance with the "Conditional Cash Transfer" application, 20 pounds are distributed

monthly through the relevant ministries and the Fak-Fuk Fund to families who send their boys

and girls to the school and have their vaccinations. In

order to establish a social security network aimed at full access to basic health services for

children and parents of families who are involved in the most vulnerable part of the population

by the General Directorate of Social Assistance and Solidarity '(SYDGM) all over our country

Şartlı Nakit Transferi (ŞNT)

"Conditional Health Benefits" are applied. While the Eastern figures of our country benefit from

this practice, the Western figures do not make much use of it.

By practice, regular health care is provided to families and mothers who cannot perform regular

health check-ups for pre-school children. This practice is carried out within the framework of the

protocol with the Ministry of Health. Payments are made directly to mothers in order to

strengthen the position of the woman in the family and society. Conditional Cash Transfers

(CCTs), ie "student money" or "children's money", which are known to the public, can not

benefit from basic health and education services due to economic difficulties, are not subject to

any social security institutions and are not subject to regular income. is a conditional help

program. The CCT assistance program has three different aid programs: education, health and
pregnancy. Aid for young children between 0-6 years "health aid", aid for children aged 617

"educational aid" and assistance for pregnant women "pregnancy aid".

Opportunity NYC

In March 2007, former New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced his intention to

test a set of antipoverty initiatives, called Opportunity NYC, that would use temporary cash

payments to poor families to boost their income in the short term, while building their ability to

avoid longer-term and second-generation poverty. Such payments are known internationally as

“conditional cash transfers” because the payments are contingent on family members making

investments in their futures, typically by building children’s educational achievement and family

health.

In the United States, prominent examples of this type of policy include the federal Earned

Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), both of

which make cash transfers contingent on work effort. Opportunity NYC went further than these

programs by offering payments for a broader set of activities.

Opportunity NYC included three separate demonstration projects, each of which took a

somewhat different approach. Family Rewards was a comprehensive, two-generation strategy

that focused on children’s education, family preventive health care, and parents’ workforce

efforts. Work Rewards targeted the workforce efforts of low-income adults living in subsidized
housing. A third project called the Spark program focused solely on children and their school

performance. All three projects were supported by a consortium of private funders.

In collaboration with the mayor’s office, a host of city agencies, and Seedco (a private, not-for-

profit workforce and economic development organization), MDRC helped design Family

Rewards and Work Rewards and led random assignment evaluations of the effectiveness of these

programs. The Spark program was designed and evaluated by a team headed by Roland Fryer of

Harvard University, in collaboration with the New York City Department of Education.

Opportunity NYC was an initiative of Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity (NYC

Opportunity), originally established in 2006 as a unit of the mayor’s office to implement

promising antipoverty programs in New York City. NYC Opportunity oversees evaluations of

the initiatives to determine their success in reducing poverty and increasing self-sufficiency

among New Yorkers.

Local

In the Philippines, a wide range of social protection programs is in place. However, the

1997 Asian financial crisis exposed weaknesses in coverage, targeting methodologies and

techniques, and operational constraints. These result in significant leakages; resources go unduly
to the non-poor and the near-poor amid lack of reliable poverty measures as well as overlaps and

redundancies in sectoral or geographical beneficiaries.

The Department of Social Welfare and Development patterned the conditional cash

transfer system from developing countries particular in Brazil and Mexico by John Gerald B.

Santiago. In 2007, the DSWD pre-pilot tested in municipalities of Sibagat and Esperanza in

Agusan del Sur; the municipalities of Lopez Jaena and Bonifacio in Misamis Occidental, the

Caraga Region; and the cities of Pasay and Caloocan in a 50 million pesos budget.

It was renamed Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) by Santiago and Samantha

A. Vizconde on July 16, 2008 by administrative order number 16, series of 2008 and set

implementing guidelines. It is the flagship poverty alleviation program of the administration of

former President Benigno Aquino III. It aims to educate many Filipino children starting from

pre-school education to secondary education by giving them daily allowances as they go to their

daily classes. Their parents benefit from the program since their children learn a lot in school and

they are also given dietary allowances for food of their children as their children go to schools.

Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA)

IPA's early work focused on evaluating financial services for the poor, particularly microcredit.

In recent years, we have expanded to other areas as well, and we currently have studies

underway on governance, land reform, and remittances. Our country office is continuing to

develop relationships with the Philippines government and other partners to ensure that future

projects continue to address the most critical issues facing the poor.
Philippines Country Brief

In the Philippines, we have continued our global tradition of rigorous, applicable research by

building foundational research capacity and conducting evaluations in areas of pressing national

concern. Two completed evaluations offer promising insights into everyday issues that affect the

lives of the Filipino poor.

Social Protection

Eric Edmonds, Caroline Theoharides

Around the world, 168 million children are engaged in child labor, and in the Philippines many

of the children working illegally are in occupations that pose a threat to their health and safety.

However, poor families may have little other choice to support themselves. The government of

the Philippines aims to help families avoid child labor by providing them with a one-time asset

transfers equivalent to US $500 and training in using the asset to develop a livelihood.