Conditional-cash transfers are good. They could be even better

Wikipedia has a decent page on CCTs; it cites a 2009 analysis of several South American CCT programs. The report in in pdf format and is open-source.

www.ifpri.org/publication/cost-poverty-alleviation-transfer-programs

For the poorest sectors, the CCT approach is one of several socioeconomic development tools, in that it addresses health and education of children. The report correctly identifies improvements in major metrics: vaccination rates, alleviation of gross malnutrition (stunting and deformation) and in school enrollments. However, the importance of primary education is lost, if the parent(s) aren't also enrolled. Provision of basic learning skills to parents AND their children directly confronts the most important issue: reproduction rates. The poor have the largest families and are least able to feed, cloth, house and educate them.

The feed-forward effect, in providing food and vaccinations to Third World nations has resulted in a major jump in world population growth. The nations with the highest birthrates have the very lowest family income levels. You can't provide food for families and child health concerns, without getting to the heart of the matter - educating the poor on simple maths of sustainable living.

You can't get at core global health security problem - infectious disease emergence and endemic persistence - until you connect the remedial program dots: food production, sustainable local economy, child and maternal health and wellbeing, and public education for the family.

For sustainable food production, every family, even in the most remote and dry locations, can grow food basics in raised beds. Vaccination of children cannot succeed if basic nutrition needs aren't met, because of impaired child immune function. Hungry and chronically infected children can't learn, because it robs the brain during key development years of calories and micronutrients needed to build brain tissue to learn. Unless you invest in local education for adults and children, they will try to become self sufficient through farming, handcraft, local service and other small business provisions to earn money. And you can't stop waves of infectious disease with vaccinations - it absolutely requires basic sanitation and safe water supply improvements in the community too.

Most of all, you can't address global overpopulation, until the poor understand cyclic cause and effect of their actions, have options to climb out of poverty and a means to end infectious disease susceptibility. They have many children for 3 reasons: more hands for labor, future care for elderly parents, and insurance against high infant mortality rates.

The other rising issue is immigration of global poor. Two problems, one overall binding solution. Remove the incentives to immigrate by providing the a toolbox of remedial actions for nations and their populations, to become responsible for their own futures.

Aside from disincentives to proper family planning and job-seeking, the main problem with many of these CCTs is that they are being used by the government machine to guarantee reelections to current administrations. In Brazil, for instance, the Bolsa Família prprogram rules required that in late 2009 the families that had not updated their information in the previous two years and the families with a per capita income exceeding R$140 (roughly US$80) be removed from the program. The November 2009 disbursements for families that met the above criteria (roughly 1.4 million families) were blocked. Lula intervened and created a grace period out of thin air, allowing these 1.4 million families (and millions of votes) to maintain their benefits and update their information until October 31, 2010, which is, not coincidentally, the day of the potential run-off presidential elections in Brazil. These programs can be helpful, if not administered for ulterior motives.

CTT work and have always worked. Unfortunately too many people think like Bob from DC. OK so there was some manipulation of deadlines. but compared to the upside - 1.4 million families getting assistance, the posturings of well-fed, well-housed, western bureaucrats is somehow sickening

Your first paragraph summed up the whole problem. The first person had 4 children and the next had 5 children. If I spent all my time and effort popping out babies, I would be poor too. Anyone receiving assistance should be limited to two children max. After your second child forced sterilization is required. Numerous times I see poor people on the news lamenting that they can't feed their 10 children. When did this person realize they were poor? After the first child or 10 years later after the 10th child. I'm sure some form of free birth control is available. Why should my tax dollars support continued ignorance. I would support CCT if their was a limit on the number of children per woman that I am paying for.

In the US the inner cities have been administered by Democrats for almost 50 years. They have implemented many programs and spent vast sums of money. I have yet to hear of ONE place that has improved itself to the point where they do not need assistance anymore. Similarly, in Canada, we have spent many billions in our Atlantic provinces since the sixties and they have not improved their poverty problems. In Africa, western countries have spent lavishly only to have the place descend into hunger and war. Going by this evidence it seems that aid in general is devastating to the recipients and takes resources from the productive parts of the world.

@Bob from DC
While it is unfortunate that development efforts are used for political purposes, this is hardly a feature linked strictly to CCT. Taking the US budget, for instance, vast sums of money for infrastructure, government contracts, military bases, etc, are quite often given to areas that are needed to win re-elections instead of areas where they would be most beneficial. The US budget, especially the stimulus package, is heavily biased towards rural areas whose infrastructure costs more to implement and maintain and serves less people than urban ones, (yet receives undue political influence and often represents swing states) but this does not mean that infrastructure spending should be called into question altogether. The same logic would apply to CCTs

In Argentina, where a large cct program has been implemented, results have been pretty good. Both in rural and urban areas.
Urban poor do need more help (costs are higher) but locally I'd rather keep the church out of it. Too many abusive priests to say the least.

CCT seems to be good anti-poverty device for poor and middle-income countries. It alters the opportunity cost of people for non participation in activities like vaccinating and educating childrens etc. In other words, it increases incentive to take such services.

However, there is a deficiency in the mechanism to implemnt such programs. In developing countries bureaucratic ineffiency, corruption, lack of data base management system etc. has weakened all the anti-poverty programs. In addition, significant amount programs' fund goes to administrative staffs wallet rather than going to poor. On the other hand, people also involve in fraud activities to receive a petty amount.

Anti-poverty programs are inefficitive not because of programs are initself is bad, instead, it is due to the lack of good implementation mechanism and procedure. Therefore, program should be implemented if there is strong operational framework of implementing agency. Otherwise, it's outcome will be as similar to other poverty reduction program.

Last but not least:
We must think, "is it possible to distribute drinking water if there is no network of pipes from resorvior to households". "Implementation Efficiency =>Program's Success"

Nobody has yet pointed out that one of the main causes of poverty is irresponsible breeding. And poverty is a cause of excessive breeding.

I disagree with giving the poor money. 1) It hardly ever gets there, and aside from corruption, 2) it's simply that the monetary system is inherently inefficient. Charities need to raise money through for-profit organisations. Charities themselves need to pay their "volunteers" and the whole process, as a matter of course they necessarily have people that need to be paid for what they do: resulting in statistics and balance sheets that appear more like leeching rather than real charity work. This is not to say that NGO's and governments don't do a good job: they try their best.

We have the resources: there is enough water for everyone, we know how to pump water out of the ground, or to desalinate the salty and polluted water, we can hydroponically farm enough vegetables to provide abundant nutrition, we have wave, solar and wind power, more than abundant energy and alternatives to fuel, we also have excellent waste-disposal and recycling facilities and we are capable of educating our people to an extremely high level. The only thing that always prevents us from being able to do this is the lack of money.
We have the technology to do anything and to build almost everything. Robots are not used in nearly all aspects of agriculture, industry, the home and office; not because we are not able to, but because we cannot afford them, (and culture-lag due to job protectionism.)

It is quite obvious to me, that the main thing prohibiting us from not only preventing poverty, but advancing as a species, is money.
It is money that prevents poor people from getting access to anything remotely decent. It is money that prevents people from opening breakthrough businesses and making new technology available and it is also this that plans obsolescence and inferior quality, consumption and waste, it is money and patents and copyrights that prevent medicines from being developed in "unprofitable areas" and it is the lack of access to this peculiar "resource" money, that causes greed and competition, wars and strife in all places, and spheres, the home, the church, from the smallest to the largest institution.

Handing out taxpayers money to people (whether theoretically in return for changes in behaviour or not) always fails in the end.

Handing out the money with strings attached may be better than handing it out without strings - but it will lead to the same result eventually, BANKRUPTCY.

Just as the Welfare State (what the Economist calls "essential public services") is bankrupting every Western nation - so these schemes (no matter what conditions are attached in theory) will end up eventually bankrupting these nations.

As with so many things, the Economist does not understand these matters because you do not understand basic PRINCIPLES.

Jesus said teach the poor to fish and do not go on giving fish.
Poverty both urban and rural is a great challenge for India despite fast economic progress in many fronts.In populous and diverse cultures and languages nation like India politicians thrive on rural and urban poor's votes. They do make populist and unproductive gestures like distributing free cloths,books,bi-cycles,vaccines and even in some states free TVs.The sad part is no one is paying attention to imparting skills that will end up productive and sustaining.Poverty is a huge and painful problem for developing nations.The income disparities are increasing rapidly and the so called emerging middle class the consumer industry is so thrilled about does not comprise more than 20% of the lot and while another 10% have already arrived (and for generations they will be the upper crust)leaving 70% to languish a day to day being.Of these more than 50% are in dire poverty and need economic and social uplift.
I think programs by rich corporates and banks would be more useful if intelligently designed to motivate and propel these unfortunates to making a better living using newly acquired skills.

The only surefire way to alleviate, if not erradicate global poverty, is by each one of us practising the Golden Rule, sincerely - not just by paying hypocritical lip service, but by real acts.

The sublime words of Clarence Darrow spring to mind: "You can only protect your liberties in this world, by protecting the other person's freedom. You can only be free if I am free."

Poverty is the ultimate bastion of slavery: the last frontier to conquer before true freedom is gained. We can only achieve it as a people, not on our own. So..

The idea of CCTs on paper is amazing, but there in their implementation problems arise. Since many are CCT programs require that recipients to get vaccinations for their children or to send their children to school, it would seem appropriate to have mechanisms to verify that parents are meeting these requirements and those that do not would be punished in some way. Bolsa Familia has several problems ranging from corruption to lack of verification mechanisms and follow-up on the part of program administrators. It has been widely reported in Brazilian media in the past few months that approximately 80% of Bolsa Familia's budget is spent on "administration" of the program - lots of the money ends up pensions for employees that worked for Bolsa Familia and not in the hands of poor Brazilians or being used for the actual adminstration of the program. Other problems have been that recipients are not vaccinating their children or sending them to school, but are still receiving their monthly stipends from Bolsa Familia. Additionally, the public schools which these children attend are not providing them with a good education that will help them join the middle class later in life or to continue to higher education. Many of these schools are poorly funded and class sizes are large. It is hard to see how, while the requirement is a good idea, that is truly helping these children in the long run. With out schools to provide a quality education and truly enforcing the requirements that children attend school it is not likely that this will prove to be a success at educating the poor.

However, it is true that Brazil's middle class has grown drastically in the past decade, but it is difficult to say whether this is due to Bolsa Familia being a success or simply because high commodity prices and rising domestic demand for goods have created more job opportunites. CCTs do have a place in developing countries, but it requires efficient and skilled managers to achieve the goals of these programs, as well as ovesight of managers and audits of the program. It is essential that public schools be improved for these programs to truly be successful in the long-run.

Furthermore, it seems that programs should be developed that give parents of these children jobs if they cannot find one for an additional stipend or increased stipend - much like the New Deal in the US. Parents could be put to work on infrastructure projects, waste management for cities or numerous other positions that are needed in these countries as well. Lastly, these programs are not meant to be a permanent income source thus there should be a graduation schedule component to them otherwise you condition people to receive payments and not seek employment.

Are these governments giving fish or teaching people how to fish? I do agree that these initiatives are part of the solution but sustainable polices is what countries need. Re-election is always in the minds of politicians. If politicians really want to make a difference then they need to introduce legislative changes which will guarantee that their policies outlive their term in power. Good intentions are not good enough in the long-term. The path to social justice has a beginning but need continuity and will never end

Cash-in-hand programs reduce the suffering of poverty, but I would risk saying that those programs causes the vast majority to remain poor. It seems to be a reality in the majority of societies ( if not all) that for 10 to 20% will not get enough money to justify going to work : no way to get their children to be cared for, not enough money to buy clothes, no way to pay the cost of transportation , and so on. Evidently , the problem is bigger in countries with large economic and social inequality. But appears to me that this people will remain excluded, even if obese. In Brazil the result is that people that get cash-in-hand will not look for jobs

Real issue is poverty alleviation. Pittance given to the poor, is not a relief. Development and employment opportunities are needed. Individual Charity just for a livelihood generates laziness. Affordable health care , educational facilities etc. will ensure better living standard.

Just a couple of points for clarification: I have nothing against CCTs, provided that they are administered professionally. That is not the case in Brazil. The government's actions there have shown that the program's true goal is the acquisition of votes (why else would the Workers' Party rebaptize FHC's successful Bolsa Escola program?); the benefits to the needy, which are visible and undeniable, are but a positive externality to the corruption in the program. If the eradicaion of poverty were the true goal, income limits for eligibility would not be set on per capita terms, which stimulate procreation among the poor. If eradication of illiteracy were the true goal, the Lula administration would verify attendance records in the schools, which has not been the case. All I am saying is that people respond to incentives, and if a program does not motivate its users to become financially independent and self-sustainable, it is doomed to failure.

While the idea of giving poor people money sounds good, I'm not sure about how useful it really is. I agree with the other comments about these people needing to learn how to earn their own money. I also agree with the fact that there needs to be a limit on how many children they can have. I don't totally disagree with CCTs but I also think more needs to be done to educate the poor.

I would like to add that our cash-in-hand programs may be one of the largest vote and popularity buying program of the planet, and politicians make sure the poor and ignorant remain as they are: excluded and voting as the politicians want. The future of democracy is idiocracy- in near future societies will be the result of the voting of the majority of mentally retarded , idiots