IPC-IG’s Research Coordinator, Dr. Fábio Veras Soares participated in the international workshop on “(Conditional) Cash Transfer Programmes (CCTs) in the Arab Region”, in Beirut, Lebanon, from 19 to 20 July. The workshop was organised and hosted by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), in cooperation with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Labour Organization (ILO), the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), and the World Bank. The event brought together ministers and officials from ten countries across the Arab region that have already implemented cash transfer programmes or are planning to design one.

1. 1
Condidtional Cash Transfers in
Latin America– achievement
and challenges
Fabio Veras Soares – IPC-IG
Workshop on Conditional Cash Transfers in the Arab Region
Beirut 19-20th
July 2016

2. CTs and CCTs as social protection system components
 Non-contributory CTs and CCTs should be understood as part of a social
protection system
 They are meant to cover specific sectors of the population, in particular,
the poor and the vulnerable. Thus they can be seen as part of the social
assistance component of social protection as well as a key tool to fight
poverty and vulnerability and to support social inclusion.
 Their focus is on the monetary component to smooth (food) consumption,
however, by assuring that basic needs are met, they act as a springboard
to have wider impacts.
 These wider impacts have been greatly facilitated by recent innovations
experienced in the Global South – specially in LAC, but also in countries
in Africa, South America and MENA region.
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3. CTs and CCTs as social protection system components
 Latin American countries are well known for their high level of
inequalities.
 Recent reforms of the social protection system have tried to curb poverty
as well as to address inequities of the social protection system and to
facilitate access to social services.
 Arab countries have much lower inequality but they are facing challenges
with the current design of their social protection programmes.
 Recent reforms (or talk of) suggest that (some) countries in the arab
region have been exposed to the LAC experience
 It is important to understand the different contexts and how the LAC
experience could be informative for the on-going reports in the arab
region.
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4. CTs and CCTs as social protection system components
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5. CTs and CCTs as social protection system components
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6. CTs and CCTs as social protection system components
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7. CCTs reach 133 million people in LAC
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SourceSimone Cecchini, based on the ECLAC database of conditional cash transfer programmes

8. Coverage and Investment has increased over time
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Source: ECLAC (2015) Inclusive Social Development.
CCT coverage, 2000-2013 Investment in CCT, 2000-2013

9. Proportion of CCT beneficiaries and (extreme) poverty rates
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CCT beneficiaries is greater than the number of extremely poor persons

10. CCTs
 CCTs components:
 cash
 Targeting
 conditonalities
Implemented with a view to reach the double objective of poverty alleviation and
stop intergenerational transmission of poverty
The fact that we have a double objective sometimes generate tension and
contradictions no how programme evolves and how the different components
are brought together in a coherent and coordinated manner.
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11. CCTs in LAC: a typology
• Human capital accumulation
Strong role of conditionalities, no national coverage, not very regular verification of
eligibility, benefit structure clearly related to age and school grade, no explict
concern about current generation – only as parents.
• Poverty alleviation/eradication
Strong role of the transfers, national coverage, regular verification of eligibility,
benefit structure incorporates unconditional elements, soft or nudge
conditionalities, concern about income generation for current generation.
• Eradication of extreme poverty and case management
Focus on extreme/chronic poverty, fighting social exclusion, access to social
services, focus on linking with complementary programmes for all family
member and not only children, case management – regular visits by social
workers
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12. Poverty-related CTs and CCTs
Cash – immediate poverty alleviation, but concerns over…
Dependency
Misuse
Inflation
Raising issues related to:
Calibration of the value of the benefit;
Time in the programme;
Graduation strategies
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13. Targeting
 Targeting – geographical, categorical and (proxy) means-testing
How to deal with:
 exclusion and inclusion errors;
 verification challenges,
 recertification process,
 implementation costs.
 stigma
Potential impact on informality and/or labour market participation and possible
response:
- Universalism
- Integration with social security (subsidized contributory schemes)
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14. Conditionlity
Conditionality
Rationale: existence of market failures would prevent families to make optimal
investment in human capital (e.g lack of information about returns to education;
differences in intertemporal discount rates); differences between private and
social return rates due to externalities; political support from the better-off.
Problems: conflict with rights-based approaches; income effect would suffice;
evidence shows that it is not necessary to enforce conditionalities to lead to
behavioural change, stigma-prone.
How to define them (issues to look at)…
Nature: punitive or promotive (soft conditionalities);
Implementation osts: nudge and labelling
Potentially exclusionary – it hits the most vulnerable among the poor;
Gender empowering or disempowering.
Temptation to over-use
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15. CCTs in Latin America: impacts
• Improved food consumption (quality) and food security of
beneficiary households; but nutrition puzzle.
• Increase in the share of expenditure in child-related goods (e.g.
child clothing)
• Increase in school attendance and fall in drop-out rates, specially
for pupils in secondary education
• Fall in poverty (poverty gap) and inequality – particularly where
the programme covers large segments of the population and
transfer is not very low
• No evidence of sizable negative impacts on labour market
participation, some positive in rural areas… possibly due
to…..some evidence of productive impacts: part of the transfer is
invested in livestock and small business– Mexico and Paraguay.
• Concerns about impacts on informality (Uruguay, Argentina and
Brazil)… have they gone too far?
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16. CT and CCTs challenges
How to integrate with other interventions – food security,
employment programmes, OVC support, access to health and
education – without missing their core objectives.
How to harmonize with existing social transfers – improving
coherence across them (merging, replacing).
Attention to outcomes of the mixed models that combine Social
Cash Transfers and productive inclusion graduation projects –
sustainability and expectations.
Use of the registries for the consolidation of MIS as well as a
planning tool to improve social policies as a whole.
National budgets and scale-up.
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17. Future of CCT and CTs
Permanent programmes that are part of a broader social protection system:
I. Programmes that have a basic income component may turn into a targeted basic
income. Challenge: how to treat exclusion errors (transient poverty) and how to fill-in
the (extreme poverty) gap.
II.Programmes that focus on children and may turn into targeted or universal child
allowances. In some cases they may be merged with the family/child allowanced from
the contributory sector
III.Family support/case management components – in most countries there is lack of
resources, personnel and protocol on how to deal with different family vulnerabilities.
How to ensure that a social assistance component is built – scarce resources and
priority.
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18. Many Thanks/Shokran
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