CCTs: Expensive, short-sighted and artificial

CCTs: Expensive, short-sighted and artificial

 
The Aquino administration seeks a bigger budget for a program that is criticized as a poor cornerstone in the drive against poverty.
By SONNY AFRICA
IBON research head
IBON Features/ September 2011
IBON Features— The Aquino administration is currently seeking an 86%-budget increase for its multi-billion peso conditional cash transfer (CCT) program. But while the program admittedly has a feel-good factor, it is a problematic approach to reducing poverty in the country.

The administration itself sets a high standard for the CCT program. Its economic blueprint, the Philippine Development Plan (PDP) 2011-2016, declares: “Direct CCTs to the poor through the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program shall be the cornerstone of the government’s strategy to fight poverty and attain the MDGs.” Unfortunately this is a poor cornerstone and the program is a weak foundation in the drive against poverty in the country. Five major concerns can be raised.

First, the program is a one-shot affair that peaks in 2013 and is virtually over after 2018. The 320,411 household beneficiaries in the first year of formal implementation in 2008 rises to 4 million in 2014 and then falls just as quickly to some 350,000 in 2018. Households can only be enrolled in the program for up to five years and it is expected that a total of 4.6 million beneficiary families will have been reached over the entire program. Perhaps not coincidentally, the peak of program implementation in 2014 happens right before assessment of the country’s Millennium Development Goal (MDG) performance in 2015..... MORE

Source:  Bulatlat.com

URL: http://bulatlat.com/main/2011/09/15/ccts-expensive-short-sighted-and-artificial/