CTPs have faced an ongoing challenge in implementing sustainable graduation strategies, in terms of social policy’s ability to promote people’s self-reliance and build their capacity (Veras Soares and Britto, 2008; Yaschine and Dávila, 2008). However, the region has accorded more importance to defining CTP exit rules than to graduation strategies proper, which in many cases has stemmed partly from budgetary constraints or political considerations (such as interest in reducing length of stay in the programme and increasing the gross number of programme beneficiaries)
rather than from programme objectives (Villatoro, 2008).12 Cases have also
been observed where CTPs simply stipulate that beneficiary households should stop receiving benefits when members “lose” their eligibility. For instance, families cease to be programme beneficiaries when their children reach a certain age, leaving them in a situation of vulnerability similar to or worse than prior to the intervention (Banegas, 2008; González de la Rocha, 2008). In other cases, exit rules arbitrarily define a maximum
number of years of participation in the programme.13
There are also CTPs where the objectives are explicitly taken into account in designing graduation strategies, such as Mexico’s Oportunidades programme, where the original mechanisms needed to be systematically overhauled to bring them into line with the objectives (see box V.4).
Oportunidades, as well as Brazil’s Bolsa Família, Jamaica’s PATH, the
Dominican Republic’s Solidarity and other CTPs set time limits and the
possibility of recertification (Cecchini and Madariaga, 2010).14
12 In Nicaragua’s Social Protection Network and Crisis Response System, the maturity date of the loan used to finance programmes automatically limited length of stay in the programme, with no provision being made for transition to a new protection scheme. 13 For example, in Trinidad and Tobago’s Targeted Conditional Cash Transfer Programme
(TCCTP) the time limit is two years, in Colombia’s programme of Conditional Subsidies for School Attendance (in Bogota) it ranges from two to three years, depending on the type of subsidy, and in Brazil’s Child Labour Eradication Programme, it is up to four years. 14 In most cases, provided that families do not exceed certain income thresholds for
Finally, some CTPs establish more elaborate exit strategies. Such is the case of Solidarity Chile, where participation in the programme is governed by a graduation scheme in which family support and cash transfers are reduced gradually, while some benefits continue to be paid after the end of the family support period.
Box V.4
GRADUATION PROBLEMS WITH MEXICO’S PROGRESA-OPORTUNIDADES PROGRAMME AND DIFFERENTIATED SUPPORT SCHEME (EDA)
In line with the programme’s objective of human capital accumulation to increase families’ capabilities and its desire to prevent beneficiary dependence, Progresa planned to continue providing support to beneficiary households for as long as they remained eligible. This was done using a procedure for verifying each household’s socio-economic status every three years as from their date of admission.
When the programme was rechristened Oportunidades and for a variety of financial and other reasons, a graduation scheme was designed allowing families to exit from the programme definitively. In 2003, a similar family recertification procedure began to be implemented, adding an intermediary stage called Differentiated Support Scheme (EDA), which was applied to families showing what were deemed to be “sustainable” socio-economic and welfare improvements.
EDA implementation varies according to geographical location. In rural communities, it comes into force three years after recertification and, in urban areas, one year after. Families transferred to the scheme stop receiving the Vivir Mejor child support component for primary education and the food support component, as they are considered able to afford the costs themselves. Families continue to be EDA beneficiaries for a further three years after graduating from the programme.
The EDA was implemented because of serious misgivings about the suitability of both the chosen parameters (duration, poverty line used in the assessment) and the mechanism. Indeed, a number of assessments concluded that, after a six-year stay in the programme, only around 20% of families had managed to rise above the eligibility threshold. It was also found that some 42% of these families would fall back below the threshold in the future. Furthermore, families withdrawing from the programme showed the typical pattern of reaction or adaptation to economic crisis, meaning that they had returned to a highly vulnerable situation.
Between 2006 and 2008, further adjustments were made to the EDA. They included increasing to six the number of years required before the first assessment, removing households comprising only older adults and authorizing graduate households to request readmission to the programme subject to meeting certain conditionalities. Nonetheless, the EDA continues
to be highly controversial. Basically there are two criticisms of the scheme: (i) the contradiction between EDA exit criteria based on poverty assessments and the programme’s long-term human development objective; and (ii) the absence of a social safety net in Mexico to absorb graduate families effectively by providing access to more targeted social programmes.
Source: I. Yaschine and L. Dávila, “Why, when and how should beneficiaries leave a CCT programme”, Cash Transfers. Lessons from Africa and Latin America, D. Hailu and F. Veras Soares (eds.), Poverty in Focus, No. 15, Brasilia, International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth, August, 2008; Programa de Desarrollo Humano Oportunidades, “Prontuario institucional del Programa de Desarrollo Humano Oportunidades” [online] http://www. oportunidades.gob.mx/Wn_Publicaciones/Pub_anter.html; M. González de la Rocha “Programas de transferencias condicionadas. Sugerencias para mejorar su operación e impacto”, Futuro de las familias y desafíos para las políticas, I. Arriagada (ed.), Seminarios y conferencias series, No. 52 (LC/L.2888-P), Santiago, Chile, Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), 2008; Israel Banegas, “Trayectorias de bienestar y vulnerabilidad: Análisis de un panel de hogares incorporados al programa Oportunidades (1997-2006)”, paper presented at the third Congress of the Latin American Population Association (ALAP), Cordoba, 24-26 September [online] http://www.alapop. org/2009/images/DOCSFINAIS_PDF/ ALAP_2008_FINAL_180.pdf, 2008.