Fabio Veras, IPC-IG Research Coordinator, participated in the conference marking the first anniversary of the launch of the Takaful and Karama Conditional Cash Transfer Programme, held in Cairo, Egypt, on 28 May, 2016. He delivered a presentation on the achievements of and challenges facing cash transfers programmes worldwide.

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Cash Transfers worldwide–
achievement and challenges
Fabio Veras Soares – IPC-IG
Celebration of First Year Achievement of
Takaful and Karama
Cairo – Egypt -28 May, 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. As such they can be seen as part of the
social assistance component of social protection as key tools to fight
poverty and vulnerability and to support social inclusion.
 Their focus is on the monetary component to smooth (food) consumption,
but in 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. CCTs in LAC: a typology
• Human capital accumulation
Strong role of conditionalities, not very regular verification, benefit structure, no
concerns about current generation – only as parents.
• Poverty alleviation/eradication
Strong role of the transfers, regular verification, benefit structure of unconditional
elements, weak conditionalities, concern about income generation for current
generation
• Eradication of extreme poverty and case management
Focus on extreme/chronic poverty, 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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4. Poverty-related CTs and CCTs
 CCTs components: cash, targeting and conditonalities have led to many
reforms, but also raised some concerns.
 Linked to the double objective – poverty alleviation and stop intergenerational
transmission of poverty
 Cash – immediate poverty alleviation, but concerns over dependency, misuse
and inflation; issues of calibration; duration of the programme; graduation.
 Targeting – exclusion and inclusion errors; verification challenges,
recertification process, implementation costs, and stigma.
 Conditionality – punitive or promotive; implementation challenges; nudge and
labelling as effective as punitive methods, exclusionary-prone; gender
empowering or disempowering.
 Complementary programmes:
Social services
Productive inclusion
The key role of single registries – visibility, transparency and social
accountability (grievance mechanism)
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5. Poverty-related CTs and CCTs
 Some countries in Latin America did not have a non-contributory social pension
and have attached a social pension components to CCT programmes… e.g.
Paraguay ; El Salvador; Ecuador and even former Oportunidades in Mexico
which evolved into 70+ programme…
 In Sub-Saharan Africa many CTs have clear social pension components – when
the elderly are directly targeted (SAGE in Uganda) or use the labour-
constrained model which in many cases prioritize the elderly, the disabled and
the chronically ill (Zambia). In South Africa the SP system encompasses child
grants, disability grands and old age pensions.
 Recently in Asia, there has been an increase in social pensions and CTs as well
as experimentation with CCTs – particularly in Indonesia (PKH) and The
Philippines (4Ps)
 In MENA countries the high level of informality and unemployment as well as
the need to reform the subsidy system with a view to improving efficiency and
their redistributive impacts has led to discussions and initiative around the of
the fiscal space generated by the reforms to boos some CT and CCTs. 5

6. 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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7. SCTs in Africa: Impacts
• Community targeting seems to work fine when combined with other
mechanisms (categorical and geographical targeting, but PMT has made some
advances in most programmes recently)
• Improved food consumption (quality – away from tubers towards dairy
products) and food security of beneficiary households (Mozambique and
Kenya);
• Increases share of expenditures with health (Kenya)
• Increase in school attendance for secondary students and for those who face
higher costs in primary education; (Kenya)
• Fall in the proportion of children who are behind in terms of age-for-grade
indicators (Kenya) – starting school at the right age.
• Some evidence of positive impact of the transfers on asset accumulation:
ownership of agricultural tools and livestock. (Malawi)
• Households reduced participation in low-skilled activities outside the
household, such as agricultural wage labour and ganyu work, generally
associated with vulnerability in Malawi .
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8. SCTs in Africa: Impacts
Some recent results from PtoP and Transfer Project:
Local Economy Impacts – quite substantial even under different assumptions (closed/open
economy);
CGP in Lesotho: increased spending on children, increase in birth registration and fall in
morbidity; increase in school enrolment; productive impacts – investment and
production; reduction of food insecurity; strengthening informal sharing, own-land
cultivation – decrease in casual labour.
CGP in Zambia: asset ownership; increase in the area of land under cultivation (some
substitution took place); more sales/market activity; less wage labour and more own
farm labour.
Leap in Ghana: access to health insurance; increase in enrolment rates and reduction in
absenteeism; more savings and reduction in debts; no lasting impacts on consumption
due to irregular payments; more time on their own farm and hiring of labour; social
network positive impacts
Tigray SCT Ethiopia: the SCTPP increased social connectedness and risksharing among
beneficiaries; most recipients reported a considerable improvement in their diets,
personal hygiene, housing conditions and access to education, and performance in
primary and secondary schools.
Malawi SCT: hiring labour and reducing short-term ganyu work; reducing negative risk-
coping strategies.
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9. CT and CCTs challenges
How to integrate with other interventions – food security,
employment programmes, OVC support, access to health and
education
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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10. Future of CCT and CTs
Short to medium term programmes: they should disappear in the médium run as
the target population future generation exits (extreme) poverty. If they fail to do so,
then they fail and need to be replaced for another kind of intervention.
Permanent programmes that are part of a broader social protection system:
I.These 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.These 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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11. Many Thanks/Shokran
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