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THE
Department of Social Welfare and Development plans to
adopt a new strategy in poverty alleviation and social
assistance through a scheme that has helped reduce
poverty in countries in
Latin America and
South East Asia.
DSWD
Secretary Esperanza Cabral said the new strategy called
“Conditional Cash Transfer” (CCT) will provide money to
poor families on condition they make investments in
human capital like sending their children to school or
bringing them to health centers
regularly.
The
first CCT program was developed in Mexico nearly ten
years ago. Other countries, including Colombia, Brazil,
Jamaica, Ecuador, Chile, Honduras and Bolivia, soon
followed suit.
Cabral
said the CCT is one of the few successful programs to
combine social assistance with investment in human
capital. “It attacks poverty in the present and in the
future.”
Cabral
said that, among others, the new strategy would address
low educational achievement, high maternal and infant
mortality rates, high malnutrition rate and child
labor.
“To
ensure that children go to school, receipt of money is
contingent on enrolment and regular attendance of at
least 85 percent of school days,” she said.
“Along
with health and nutrition of children and mothers,
receipt of money depends on regular visits of children
to health centers for immunization and preventive health
care as well as improvement in the nutritional status of
the children and regular prenatal visits of pregnant
women,” she added.
Cabral
believes that “ill health” and lack of education deepen
the poverty of an individual or a family.
“With
the program focusing on education, health, and
nutrition, children beneficiaries are helped to get an
education and improve their nutritional and health
conditions. This becomes a means for assuring a healthy,
educated and productive next generation, breaking the
intergenerational transmission of poverty,” she said.
The
secretary said the money provided in CCT programs is not
a mere doleout but aims at sustainable long-term poverty
reduction as the “conditionalities” are directed toward
social development and empowerment of the beneficiaries.
“There
are risks, including political manipulation, problems
with selection of beneficiaries and misuse of funds, but
they can be mitigated by good design and implementation
strategies,” she said.
CCT will
initially be implemented in the poorest areas depending
on the result of a poverty mapping as a requirement
prior to implementation.
Experts
from the World Bank recently gave a three-day
orientation-workshop on CCT and shared the experiences
of the Latin American countries with officials and
technical persons from the DSWD and other agencies such
as the National Economic and Development Authority,
Department of Budget and Management, Department of
Finance, Department of Health, Department of Education
and the National Antipoverty Commission to be able to
come up with a project design suitable to Philippine
setting and conditions. |
