IPC’s Research Coordinator, Fábio Veras, joined the seminar and panel discussion as part of the “Les Rencontres du Devéloppement”, on 13th March, in Paris. He shared some of the Brazilian experience with Bolsa Família and other programmes. The panel was jointly organized by Research and Development Division of France’s Agency for Development (AFD) and by the Delegation for European and International Affairs (DAEI) of the French Minister of Social Affairs and Employment.

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Cash Transfers in Latin America
and Africa – what’s next?
Fabio Veras Soares – IPC-IG

2. Future of CCT and CTs in LAC
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:
a.Those programmes that have a basic income component may turn into a targeted
basic income. Challenge: how to treat exclusión errors (transient poverty) and how to
fill-in the (extreme poverty) gap.
b.Those 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 (formal and public workers).
c. Family support/case management components – in most countries there is lack of
resouces, 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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3. 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 to far?
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4. CTs Africa: an overview
• Before the 2000’s Social Cash Transfers were restricted to middle‐
income countries – old age pension and/or child support grant in
South Africa, Mauritius, Namibia and Botswana… expect for PSA in
Mozambique… early 1990’s.
• In the 2000’s with the Livingstone declaration pilot CT
programmes start being implemented mostly in Eastern and
Southern Africa (Zambia, Kenya, Malawi, Lesotho)… but also some
pilots in Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal.
• Many doubts about whether CCT could work in SSA: concerns
about dependency, administrative capacity, feasibility of having
conditionalities, local inflation…
• Focus on vulnerable groups
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5. CTs in Africa: an overview
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6. Old age grants and (C)CTs: LA and Africa
Latin America: old age grant + CCT
Some countries in Latin America do not have a non‐contributory
social pension and have attached them to CCT programmes… e.g.
Paraguay ; El Salvador; Ecuador and even Oportunidades in
Mexico which evolved into 70+ programme…
Africa: old age grants + SCT
Middle income countries had non‐contributory pensions
(Mauritius, South Africa, Namibia, Botswana)… and even low
income like Mozambique with PSA…
However, focus in demographic criteria based on high dependency
ratio have been prevalent in most Social Cash transfer in Africa. In
practice it has led to the implementation of Social Pensions in
many countries…
Alternative model: Orphans and Vulnerable Children (Kenya OVC‐
CT)
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7. Transfers as share of total expenditures of benef. families
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8. 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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9. 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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10. CTs challenges in Africa
How to integrate with other interventions – food security,
employment programmes, OVC support, access to health and
education?
Use of the registries for the consolidation of MIS as well as a
planning tool to improve social policies as a whole. South‐south
learning – Brazil, Indonesia and within Africa.
Attention to outcomes of the mixed models that combine Social
Cash Transfers and predictable public works/employment
guarantee schemes – Ethiopia (PNSP), Tanzania (TASAF), Rwanda
and Mozambique.
National budgets and scale‐up: Kenya, Zambia and Tanzania.
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11. References
Latin America:
Conditional Cash Transfer Programmes: The recent experience in Latin America and the Caribbean
Brazil: http://www.ipc‐undp.org/publication/26667
Uruguay: http://www.ipc‐undp.org/publication/26664
Argentina: http://www.ipc‐undp.org/publication/26651
AFRICA:
• Impact Evaluation of the Expansion of the Food Subsidy Programme in Mozambique
http://www.ipc‐undp.org/pub/IPCPolicyResearchBrief17.pdf
• Covarrubias et al. (2012). ‘From Protection to Production: Productive Impacts of the Malawi
Social Cash Transfer’, Journal of Development Effectiveness. Forthcoming.
• Ashu et al. (2012). The Impact of Kenya’s Cash Transfer for Orphans and Vulnerable Children on
Human Capital. Journal of Development Effectiveness . Forthcoming.
• Handa et al. (2012). ‘Targeting effectiveness of Social Cash Transfer Programmes in Three African
Countries’, Journal of Development Effectiveness. Forthcoming.
• CT‐OVC Evaluation Team (2011). The impact of the Kenya Cash Transfer Program for Orphans and
Vulnerable Children on household spending. Mimeo.
• García and Moore (2012). The Cash Dividend – The Rise of Cash Transfer in Sub‐Saharan Africa.
World Bank.
• IPC‐IG Poverty in Focus: Cash Transfers – Lessons from Africa and Latin America http://www.ipc‐
undp.org/pub/IPCPovertyInFocus15.pdf
 For More info on Impact Evaluations : http://www.cpc.unc.edu/projects/transfer and
http://www.fao.org/economic/ptop/home/pt/
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12. References
AFRICA:
• Lesotho: http://www.ipc‐undp.org/publication/27592
• Zambia: http://www.ipc‐undp.org/publication/27570
• Ghana: http://www.ipc‐undp.org/publication/27543
• Malawi: http://www.ipc‐undp.org/publication/27574
• Ethiopia: http://www.ipc‐undp.org/publication/27539
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13. Many Thanks
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