INVESTING

IN HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
TO REDUCE POVERTY:
CCT IN THE WORLD

Rogelio Gomez Hermosillo M.

WB Consultant

What are CCT?

CCT - Conditional Cash Transfer Programs
Denomination for a group of social protection Programs

with similar characteristics:

Targeted to households - families living in poverty.
Especially for chronic poverty or extreme poverty
Aimed for human capital and human development
By giving incentives (cash transfers) to promote the
use of Health / Nutrition and Education services
Goal is to break the intergenerational transmission of
poverty
CCTs were created in Latin America: Mexico and Brazil
started in the late 90s.

CCTs are demonstrating results

Impact evaluations show CCTs may be successful in
Promoting the use of preventive health care,
basically maternal and infant care
Reducing malnutrition
Improving education enrolment, retention and
advancement
By combining well designed incentives with an
eective package of services

CCTs are being adopted in many

countries
There are more than 30 countries with pilots

or full scale Programmes.

In LA/C: Brazil Bolsa Familia, Mxico
Oportunidades, Colombia Familias en
Accin, Peru Juntos, Panam Red de
Oportunidades, Honduras Bono 10,000,
Jamaica PATH, R. Dominicana
Progresando con Solidaridad, Belize
BOOST. In Turkey, Indonesia, Tanzania,
Macedonia and many other countries also.

How do they work?

Targeting
Coordination between supply-side interventions

(nutrition / health services) with demand-side

incentives
Timely and safe delivery of cash transfers based
on compliance with conditions

Targeting Why and How?

In most of the cases, families (HH) in poverty / extreme

poverty concentrate:

Higher prevalence of infant malnutrition

Higher infant morbidity and mortality (due to preventable

diseases)
Higher drop out rates in primary and secondary education
(despite the availability of schools)

Therefore, objective targeting to families in poverty

allows to intervene with nutrition / health and education

services for many of the cases and most of the at risk
Targeting requires specic tools to nd, reach, identify
and select the target population

Supply side interventions

CCTs require supply side in place in order to

create the incentives for the demand side

Ministry
of
Health

Ministry
of
Education

Health facilities

Schools

Access to
Health &
Education
Services
(supply)

Cash
transfers
(incentives
for
demand)

Supply side interventions

Supply side is a package of eective health and

nutrition services that should be used by specic

groups, e. g.:
Pregnant mothers: nutrition counseling and

supplementation (vitamins, iron, folic acid:

micronutrients)
Infants: Promote exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months,
and complementary feeding after 6 months, prevention of
diarrhea, detection of malnutrition through height/weight
continuous monitoring, supplementation of
micronutrients
Children with malnutrition: Supplementary feeding and
treatment for acute and severe cases

Incentives, conditions and commitments

Cash transfers act as incentives because they are
attached to conditions and commitments
Conditions
Activities that are accepted
by families and should be
complied, veried and
enforced

Conditions in CCT are always

few, clear, objective and

feasible
Conditions in Health and
Nutrition are attendance to
health / nutrition services or
interventions

Commitments
Behavior changes that are
expected and encouraged,
but are not veried
Commitments are also few
and clear
Commitments in H&N may
only be promoted as part of
counseling, communication
and peer enforcement like
exclusive breast-feeding or
washing hands to prepare
food

Cash transfers are incentives for the

use of services for HD. Conditions are
verified to deliver transfers
Periodic attendance to:

Health/
Health services and to
Nutrition Orientation and
Interventions information sessions

Education

Enrolment to school
Regular attendance to
school (more than
80%)

Health /
Nutrition
Transfer

Education
Transfer

10

Operational Process: similar to

payroll.

Compliance of
Conditionalities
(attendance to
Health / Nutrition
interventions)

Verication of
compliance
(Attendance
report from
service provider)

Cash transfer
delivery
(according to
compliance)

Cash transfers delivery

Size of cash transfers should be enough to create the

incentive
Compliance of conditionalities triggers cash transfers every
cycle
Non compliance triggers a sanction: warning, partial or
complete suspension of benets
Cash transfers should be done through transparent and
accountable institutions. In almost all cases, they are
independent 3rd source (Public banks, postal oces, some
private banks, mobile payment, debit cards)

Difference between CT and CCT

Targeted
Cash
Transfers

Targeted
Conditional
Cash
Transfers

Protect basic welfare of poor households

Contribute to food security and to
smooth consumption

Protect basic welfare of poor households

Contribute to food security and to smooth
consumption
Promote human capital development for
infants (0-5), children (6-12) and youth
(13-25) of poor households
Used as incentives to attend health/
nutrition and education services

THANK YOU!
Rogelio Gomez Hermosillo M
gomezh.rogelio@gmail.com
WB Consultant