What role do conditionalities play in income transfer programs, and how do they shape recipients' obligations?

AbstractInfluential research shows that conditionalities could incentivize recipients of conditional cash transfer programmes (CCTs) to send their children to school and to regular health check‐ups. However, a growing literature is elucidating the risks of conditional transfers, from both a philosophical and an empirical perspective. This article highlights the varied deficits that have accompanied the implementation process in some Latin American countries, as well as the consequences that these deficits might have on the beneficiaries. In particular, it suggests that, rather than reducing vulnerability by improving access to services, conditionalities could be reinforcing vulnerability among non‐compliers if non‐compliance leads to the immediate suspension of the cash transfer and if this sanction is poorly implemented.While this hypothesis has gained attention and is part of both an academic and a political debate, empirical research around it is scarce. This article is an attempt to start filling this gap by focusing on the implementation process of conditionalities in a CCT programme in Uruguay (Family Allowances) and how this is experienced by a group of recipients who failed to comply with the conditionalities and were sanctioned with the suspension of the benefit. In particular, it identifies the main reasons why these beneficiaries did not comply, how they experience the sanction and how they managed—when they do—to apply for the benefit to be restored.Based on a qualitative design of in‐depth interviews, it provides empirical evidence to unpack causal relationships linking conditionalities to increased vulnerability among non‐compliers. Our findings offer evidence on the role played by the conditionalities in reinforcing vulnerability and the possible causal mechanisms that could be operating between both phenomena. This picture of policy implementation constraints that could lead conditionalities to reinforce vulnerability among recipients could be relevant to policy‐makers having to deal with non‐compliance and managing sanctions in CCTs.

This article examines how poor people negotiate obligations placed on them by social welfare initiatives. More specifically, it considers conditional cash transfer programs (CCTs), and the ways beneficiaries harness program conditionalities to make demands on authorities, in some cases even enacting subtle forms of resistance to state governance. Drawing from Michel de Certeau, it argues that while CCT conditionalities function as strategies of state development, they are not always/already under exclusive state control. Marginalized groups like CCT recipients can tactically harness these conditionalities. Through such tactics, poor people make demands on the state and deflect program obligations, but in calculated ways that avoid exposing them to greater vulnerability. Drawing from empirical data collected as part of a case study in rural northeastern Brazil, this article contributes to existent bodies of literature on CCTs, governance, and critical development studies in the 21st century.

The Malaysian government strives to support the bottom 40 (B40) group by initiating various cash transfer programs, specifically known as household living aid. In 2017, the government introduced a special car rebate to cash transfer recipients who wished to become ride-hailing drivers to increase their monthly household income and promote self-employment. However, the initiative was reported impractical due to the car model and may send the borrowers into more debt. Its return on investments (ROI) was also questionable. Thus, this research aims to identify the mechanism for ride-sharing assistance for cash transfer recipients. The objective is to develop a practical entrepreneurship model based on government cash transfers specifically for ride-hailing services and the B40 group. This research employed a qualitative method through a semi-structured interview with eight ride-hailing drivers. Using Atlas.ti software, themes were created comprising of initiatives (amount, form, and payment procedures), process (information, selection criteria, and monitoring), car (model, attributes, and maintenance,) and car ownership and financing. This model can contribute to self-employment activities, improve the household income, and ultimately the recipients may find their way out of poverty. More significantly, the government can accurately create the incentive policy and enjoy the ROI in the form of poverty reduction.

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 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.

The austerity movement in high-income countries of Europe and North America has renewed calls for a guaranteed Basic Income. At the same time, conditional and unconditional cash transfers accompanied by rigorous impact evaluations have been conducted in low- and middle-income countries with the explicit support of the World Bank. Both Basic Income and cash transfer programs are more confidently designed when based on empirical evidence and social theory that explain how and why cash transfers to citizens are effective ways of encouraging investment in human capital through health and education spending. Are conditional cash transfers more effective and/or more efficient than unconditional transfers? Are means-tested transfers effective? This essay draws explicit parallels between Basic Income and unconditional cash transfers, and demonstrates that cash transfers to citizens work in remarkably similar ways in low-, middle- and high-income countries. It addresses the theoretical foundation of cash transfers. Of the four theories discussed, three explicitly acknowledge the interdependence of society and are based, in increasingly complex ways, on ideas of social inclusion. Only if we have an understanding of how cash transfers affect decision-making can we address questions of how best to design cash transfer schemes.

Past research on the influence of conditional cash transfers-widespread antipoverty programs-on migration has tended to focus on beneficiaries as a homogenous unit. Drawing on feminist critiques of the contemporary international antipoverty agenda, this article views both conditional cash transfer programs and migration patterns from a gender-sensitive lens. Conditional cash transfers rely on a gendered division of labor in which the informal work of women is particularly called upon in order to fulfill program requirements. This work contends that conditional cash transfers emphasize gender responsibilities for women as mothers and caretakers, which mark their belonging in the domestic sphere and limit the likelihood of their migration while making no such demands on beneficiary men or nonbeneficiaries. Using logistic and multinomial logistic regression models and data from the Mexican Family Life Survey, the analysis finds evidence supporting the hypothesis that conditional cash transfer participation disproportionately limits migration for beneficiary women. This study broadly argues that the impact of such antipoverty programs is more gendered than previously thought and emphasizes the importance of examining previously studied outcomes in ways that consider the specific subject locations of recipients in order to better understand both the logics underlying development policy and the process of migration itself.

AbstractDo conditional cash transfer programs reduce voters' incentives to hold their government accountable for its performance? Studies show that these programs generate considerable electoral returns for the governments responsible for them. One important and unexplored question is whether these popular programs have also changed the landscape of accountability in Latin America. Survey data from 16 Latin American countries that have adopted CCT programs do not offer support for the claim that such programs have a detrimental effect on electoral accountability for corruption and for the economy. Only in countries where CCT programs do not follow strict rules do beneficiaries attribute relatively less weight to the government's economic performance, but this effect is marginal. These findings fill an important gap in the literature and offer reassuring evidence that cash transfers can alleviate poverty while preserving voters' incentives to exercise electoral accountability in crucial areas of government performance.

Conditional cash transfer schemes were identified as one of the major driving forces behind poverty reduction in most developing countries during the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals and the subsequent Sustainable Development Goals . However, relevance of conditionality obligations of beneficiaries and service providers to sustain the conditional cash transfer schemes and make them relevant to the Sustainable Development Goals appeared to have encountered a number of challenges. This paper examined the circumstances under which beneficiaries and service providers fulfilled their conditionality obligations in conditional cash transfer schemes and its relevance to the Sustainable Development Goals implementation in developing countries. A systematic review technique was employed to analyse 60 articles. It was found that, improved health care, improved educational level, increased consumption level, poverty reduction, and among others are relevant to the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals . Policy dilemma, time frame dilemma, infrastructural capacity and poor macroeconomic policies were some of the constraints in conditional cash transfers to be addressed to secure better implementation of Sustainable Development Goals . It is therefore suggested that expansionary and contractionary policies be instituted to control macroeconomic indicators where necessary, more infrastructure should be provided and timelines of cash transfers should be monitored in order to make the intervention more relevant in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals . Keywords: Relevance, Conditionalities, Cash Transfers, Sustainable Development Goals , Developing Countries

The most important element of conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs is conditioning the social transfer on some pre-defined requirements concerning healthcare and education. The conditioning (co-responsibility) is justified by the belief that higher accumulation of human capital will allow the beneficiaries to permanently lift out of poverty. The literature on the subject is ample, focused mostly on the cost effectiveness of CCTs and their impact on poverty rates and income inequalities. Usually ignored are the rules and norms – important from the institutional perspective – that affect the behavior of participants as well as non-participants and influence their attitudes towards work, childcare, social responsibility, etc.
 The aim of the paper is twofold. First, to identify rules and norms that matter for the effects and efficiency of CCTs. Second, to define the channels through which they impact the behavior of economic agents. The research hypothesis assumes that conditionality of transfers increases the efficiency of public social spending and can be applied broadly, in many contexts. To verify the hypothesis, an extensive meta-analyses of available studies was performed. The initial conclusions suggest that CCTs could be successfully used in developed countries as well as in poorer regions.

Conditional cash transfer programs (CCTs) have two main objectives: reducing poverty and increasing the human capital of children. To reach these objectives, transfers are given to poor households conditioned on investments in their children’s education, health, and nutrition. Targeting mechanisms used by CCTs have been generally successful in identifying the income poor but have not fared as well in identifying households that under-invest in human capital. These mechanisms do not consider the multidimensional aspect of poverty, even when composite measures are used, as they do not capture each dimension-specific deprivation. This paper proposes a multidimensional targeting approach to identifying beneficiaries that explicitly takes into consideration the multiple objectives of CCTs and the multiple deprivations of the poor household. Results indicate that the proposed multidimensional targeting methodology significantly improves the selection of households with children who are most deprived in the dimensions often relevant to CCTs. In the case of Mexico’s Oportunidades, ex-ante evaluation results indicate that the multidimensional identification of beneficiaries increases the impact of transfers on school attendance compared to alternative targeting models.