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cross-sector coordination

On the horizontal axis of integration, the multidimensional approach to poverty taken by CTPs and coordination of income- and consumption- related interventions, as well as human capabilities, make it necessary to develop better linkages between the various social policy sectors. In particular, conditionalities requiring coordination with ministries of health and education act as an incentive for cross-sector collaboration, not only in programme-coordination systems or networks (type-3 CTPs) but also in type-1 and type-2 CTPs (see chapter III).

As mentioned earlier, there must be cross-sector collaboration at and between the different administrative levels, from central level (among ministries and departments) down to local level, as well as among the different sectors and actors operating at local level, in direct contact with beneficiaries or users. Such political coordination can be found in the work of the Executive Secretariat of the Solidarity Chile system, the Intersectoral Coordination Committee of the Dominican Republic’s Solidarity programme and the Interministerial Management Council of Brazil’s Bolsa

Família programme. Moreover, the information systems on beneficiary

selection and registration, such as Brazil’s single register for social programmes (CadÚnico), and the Dominican Republic’s Single System for the Identification of Beneficiaries (SIUBEN), are examples of the significant contribution made by CTPs to cross-sector linkages at operational level.

Their work is crucial to maintaining the flow of information and resources among the different actors, as well as to speeding up payments and suspending or cancelling benefits where applicable.

Even though a key aim of many CTPs has been to coordinate public interventions targeted at poor and extremely poor families, there is still no effective coordination between CTPs, on the one hand, and sectoral structures and their intervention mechanisms, on the other. There are major problems to be addressed in this area, not only because of the complexity and duplication of structures operating in the different public administration spheres, which could be solved by rationalization and more clearly defined procedures, but also because it is difficult to implement measures that do not always lead to net gains for the sectors as they may affect the control of their budget allocations or their operational and decision-making independence. Therefore the challenge lies in ensuring that the multisectoral nature of CTPs does not reduce social protection specificity as this would run the risk of fragmenting objectives and diluting priorities, limiting their potential impact and efficiency in the process.

Moreover, the cross-sector concept itself causes nebulous situations that need to be clarified. For instance, the sectoral components of interventions need to be maintained, as it is precisely in sectors like education, health and employment where there is greatest awareness of the public provision rationale and related demand for services and where the interventions required in each area are most clearly identified. However, it is also necessary to transcend sectoral rationales, owing to the multidimensional nature of CTP interventions, and to take action in areas that are difficult to influence, such as the historical practices used by the sectors, different levels of government and local actors, whose organizational cultures are not always consistent with programme objectives.

Another key aspect of horizontal integration is found at local level. As several authors have shown (Kaztman, 2001; Rodríguez and Arriagada, 2004), historically it is at the local level where inequalities and barriers to integration have arisen and been structured, causing such phenomena as residential segregation, which makes territorial management one of the major challenges to integrating social protection (ECLAC, 2008b). This necessitates the creation of basic institutional conditions to enable CTPs to operate at local level in such areas as managing resources and an integrated supply of services.

Finally, organizational aspects specific to individual sectors and their different operating rationales pose another major challenge to horizontal integration. Not only must CTPs successfully link

beneficiaries with existing public programmes and services and ensure that they are suitable, the providers of these services must understand the CTP operating rationale, whose conceptual basis differs from that traditionally applied to non-contributory social protection programmes and public services (Cohen and Franco, 2006a; Nun and Trucco, 2008). The extent to which officials in the relevant services take ownership of a CTP’s operating rationale and the way in which they do so can impact heavily on the quality of such services, as well as on meeting specific objectives (see box V.1).

Box V.1

PROBLEMS WITH SECTORS TAKING OWNERSHIP OF CO-RESPONSIBILITY TRANSFER PROGRAMMES

Roberts (2006) shows that access by beneficiaries of Jamaica’s Programme of Advancement through Health and Education (PATH) to the health and education services stipulated as conditionalities has placed an extra workload on institutions, especially in relation to compliance- monitoring mechanisms. The institutions running them view them as an extra burden unrelated to their core activities, causing a problem of “ownership” of the programme and its beneficiaries. In the case of Solidarity Chile, Nun and Trucco (2008) show that the programme’s intervention rationale faces problems in terms of unifying the interpretation of its guidelines and objectives among the many stakeholders (including sectors, municipalities and government agencies). This results in a poor perception of the programmes by beneficiaries, who are unable to absorb the fact that access to the services is a right and instead they see them as “handouts” or “benefits given to them by somebody (not the system)” (MIDEPLAN, 2009b). As a result, the “rights-based rationale” that is supposed to govern the programmes tends to be replaced by a welfare-type assistance or by the traditional guidelines that social policy implementers have always used, which can undermine the priority that ought to be given to “social promotion”.

Difficulties with ownership of programmes can pose a huge problem when service providers’ attitudes end up affecting demand for the services and compliance with the conditionalities. In the case of Solidarity Chile, for example, families graduating from the Puente programme have reported that service officials used “indecipherable language” that made it difficult for them to understand the information provided, that they were treated with scorn and disregard for their status as beneficiaries, and some families even pointed to explicit abuse by administrative officials (MIDEPLAN, 2009b).

Source: Ministry of Planning of Chile (MIDEPLAN), Trayectorias familiares al egreso del programa Puente, Santiago, de Chile, Executive Secretariat of the Intersectoral Social Protection System, 2009; E. Nun and D. Trucco, “Informe de sistematización de evaluaciones cualitativas del Programa Puente y sistema de protección Chile Solidario”, Revista latinoamericana de desarrollo humano [online] http://www. revistadesarrollohumano.org/temas125.asp, 2008; C. Roberts, “Seguimiento del desempeño: Jamaica”, paper presented at the Third International Conference on Conditional Cash Transfers, Istanbul, 26-30 June, 2006.

2. Vertical integration: strengthening coordination