Publication: Boosting Human Capital in the Philippines through Conditional Cash Transfers
Loading...
Files in English
1,372 downloads
Published
2020-05
ISSN
Date
2020-07-27
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
Human capital is the Philippines’ most important resource. By the late 2000s, remittances from skilled and semi-skilled Filipinos working abroad were increasingly vital for many families, even as the country became one of the preferred destinations for foreign enterprises looking for educated workers in countries where their business processes could be outsourced. There were concerns, however, that the Philippines was beginning to lose its human capital edge because of critical gaps in access to social services and in the quality of those services. The Philippines responded to this by adopting an ambitious national social agenda aimed at putting it on a more robust development path. This agenda included lengthening the secondary education cycle and creating a social health insurance program for all citizens, a population management program, and a conditional cash transfer program (King 2020). This delivery note focuses on the conditional cash transfer program. Called the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program, which roughly translates into “building bridges for Filipino families” (Schelzig 2015), the initiative, first implemented in 2007, was designed to assist the poor by directly providing them with money. Unlike conventional social assistance programs, however, the beneficiaries received the grants only if they fulfilled certain conditions. Those conditions include enrolling their children in school and ensuring that they maintain attendance rates of at least 85 percent, taking their children on regular clinic visits for basic health services (such as immunization and growth monitoring), and regularly attending sessions where the beneficiaries learned about topics such as family planning, good citizenship, and financial literacy (Kandpal et al. 2016).
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Global Delivery Initiative. 2020. Boosting Human Capital in the Philippines through Conditional Cash Transfers. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34211 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Evaluating the Impact of Conditional Cash Transfer Programs(Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2005-03-01)Several developing economies have recently introduced conditional cash transfer programs, which provide money to poor families contingent on certain behavior, usually investments in human capital, such as sending children to school or bringing them to health centers. The approach is both an alternative to more traditional social assistance programs and a demand-side complement to the supply of health and education services. Unlike most development initiatives, conditional cash transfer programs have been subject to rigorous evaluations of their effectiveness using experimental or quasi-experimental methods. Evaluation results for programs launched in Colombia, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Turkey reveal successes in addressing many of the failures in delivering social assistance, such as weak poverty targeting, disincentive effects, and limited welfare impacts. There is clear evidence of success from the first generation of programs in Colombia, Mexico, and Nicaragua in increasing enrollment rates, improving preventive health care, and raising household consumption. Many questions remain unanswered, however, including the potential of conditional cash transfer programs to function well under different conditions, to address a broader range of challenges among poor and vulnerable populations, and to prevent the intergenerational transmission of poverty.Publication North-South Knowledge Sharing on Incentive-based Conditional Cash Transfer Programs(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-01)Over the last decade, Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs have become one of the most widely adopted anti-poverty initiatives in the developing world. Inspired particularly by Mexico's successful program, CCTs are viewed as an effective way to provide basic income support while building children's human capital. These programs have had a remarkable global expansion, from a handful programs in the late 1990s to programs in close to 30 countries today, including a demonstration program in the United States. In contrast to many other safety net programs in developing countries, CCTs have been closely studied and well evaluated, creating both a strong evidence base from which to inform policy decisions and an active global community of practice. This paper first reviews the emergence of CCTs in the context of a key theme in welfare reform, notably using incentives to promote human capital development, going beyond the traditional focus on income support. The paper then examines what has been learned to date from the experience with CCTs in the South and raises a series of questions concerning the relevance and replicability of these lessons in other contexts. The paper concludes with a call for further knowledge sharing in two areas: between the North and South as the experience with welfare reform and CCTs in particular expands, and between behavioral science and welfare policy.Publication Examining Conditional Cash Transfer Programs : A Role for Increased Social Inclusion?(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-06)Conditional Cash Transfer programs (CCTs) provide money to poor families contingent upon certain verifiable actions, generally minimum investments in children s human capital such as regular school attendance or basic preventative health care. They therefore hold promise for addressing the inter-generational transmission of poverty and fostering social inclusion by explicitly targeting the poor, focusing on children, delivering transfers to women, and changing social accountability relationships between beneficiaries, service providers and governments. CCT programs are at the forefront of applying new social policy theories and program administration practices. They address demand-side barriers, have a synergistic focus on investments in health, education and nutrition, and combine short-term transfers for income support with incentives for long-run investments in human capital. They also are public sector leaders in program administration, using modern targeting, registering, and monitoring systems along with strategic evaluations. Their impact depends on the supply of quality, accessible health and education services and may increase with strengthened links to the labor market, and a greater focus on early childhood and transient support to households facing shocks. CCT programs are facing a number of challenges as they evolve, from reaching vulnerable groups to fostering transparency and accountability, especially at the community level. Centralized programs have been criticized for limiting the engagement of local governments and civil society and it is clear that in limited capacity environments, a greater reliance on communities is warranted. In sum, though promising, these programs are not a panacea against social exclusion and should form part of comprehensive social and economic policy strategies and be applied carefully in different policy contexts.Publication Philippines Conditional Cash Transfer Program : Impact Evaluation 2012(Washington, DC, 2013-11)The specific objectives of the program are to: a) keep children in school, b) keep children healthy, and c) invest in the future of children. It reflects the Government's commitment to promoting inclusive growth by investing in human capital to improve education and health outcomes for poor children and pregnant women. The program is based on the premise that poverty is not about income alone but is multi-dimensional, and factors such as access to basic social services and social environments matter. This report presents the findings from an analysis that assessed program impact by comparing outcomes in areas that received Pantawid Pamilya with outcomes in areas that did not receive the program. The impact evaluation applied two analytical methods: 1) Randomized Control Trial (RCT), which compared randomly assigned program areas and non-program areas to assess program impact, and 2) regression discontinuity design, which compared the outcomes of poor households who received the program with similar poor households just above the poverty line. This report presents the findings from the RCT component only. It should be noted that although 2.5 years of program implementation is generally considered enough time to observe impacts on short-term outcomes, it is not long enough to assess impacts on long-term outcome measures. The program is also achieving its objective of enabling poor households to increase their investments in meeting the health and education needs of their children. Although the study found that the cash grants were reaching beneficiaries, the study did not find an overall increase in per capita consumption among the poor benefiting from the program, although there was some evidence that poor households are saving more in certain provinces.Publication Conditional Cash Transfers : Reducing Present and Future Poverty(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2009)The report shows that there is good evidence that conditional cash transfers (CCTs) have improved the lives of poor people. Transfers generally have been well targeted to poor households, have raised consumption levels, and have reduced poverty, by a substantial amount in some countries. Offsetting adjustments that could have blunted the impact of transfers, such as reductions in the labor market participation of beneficiaries, have been relatively modest. Moreover, CCT programs often have provided an entry point to reforming badly targeted subsidies and upgrading the quality of safety nets. The report thus argues that CCTs have been an effective way to redistribute income to the poor, while recognizing that even the best-designed and best-managed program cannot fulfill all of the needs of a comprehensive social protection system. CCTs therefore need to be complemented with other interventions, such as workfare or employment programs and social pensions. The report also considers the rationale for conditioning the transfers on the use of specific health and education services by program beneficiaries. Conditions can be justified if households are under investing in the human capital of their children, for example, if they hold incorrect beliefs about the returns to these investments; if there is "incomplete altruism" between parents and their children; or if there are large externalities to investments in health and education. Political economy considerations also may favor conditional over unconditional transfers: taxpayers may be more likely to support transfers to the poor if they are linked to efforts to overcome poverty in the long term, particularly when the efforts involve actions to improve the welfare of children.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Review and Guidance on ECD Assessment Tools in FCV Contexts(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-01-14)By 2030, an estimated two-thirds of the world's extremely poor could be concentrated in countries and contexts characterized by fragility, conflict, and violence (FCV) (World Bank Group, 2020). FCV contexts, affected by humanitarian crises, prolonged emergencies, and armed conflicts, are significant hindrances to poverty reduction and sustainable development. The cycle of instability and violence in these contexts often leads to the destruction of infrastructure and a strain on resources, making it difficult for communities to lift themselves out of poverty and achieve sustainable development goals. The list of FCV contexts includes the World Bank list of countries and territories affected by fragility and conflict situations (FCS), as well as countries suffering from violence and those with large-forcibly displaced populations that are not included in the FCS list. This review aims to describe which early childhood development (ECD) measurement tools have been used in FCV contexts and to serve as a guide for tool selection in these settings. This guidance is intended to assist country teams in identifying appropriate tools for ECD measurement activities, provided that such activities are already recognized as priorities. While parents and caregivers are essential to ECD, particularly in FCV environments, this review does not concern tools that measure adults' well-being or parenting-related outcomes. Instead, it measures children's developmental outcomes and other child-related constructs relevant to FCV contexts. The authors briefly describe the situation of children living in FCV contexts and how it can affect their development. We then make a case for the importance of ECD measurement, the lack of data on ECD in FCV contexts, and the data collection challenges. After that, we provide a deep dive into what was found in the desk review and provide a framework for tool selection. Finally, we present policy recommendations.Publication Implementing 30x30(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-01-24)The publication of nearly 600,000 new species occurrence maps using Global Biodiversity Information Facility data provides an opportunity to reassess international species protection with broader representation for plants, invertebrates, and other species. This development aligns with the global 30x30 initiative, where 188 governments have committed to expanding terrestrial and marine protection to cover 30 percent of the planet by 2030. This study leverages Global Biodiversity Information Facility occurrence maps to identify new opportunities for species protection in 10 countries in Latin America (Brazil, Costa Rica, and Ecuador), Africa (Cameroon, South Africa, and Madagascar), and the Asia-Pacific region (Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, India, and China). By focusing on individual countries, the paper emphasizes the importance of local conservation stewardship. Both terrestrial and marine cases are analyzed, with particular attention to endemic species. Unlike previous efforts, this approach assigns equal weight to all vertebrates, invertebrates, plants, and other species mapped in the database. A spatially efficient algorithm identifies priority localities for establishing new protected areas to safeguard unprotected species. The findings reveal that initial conditions, such as existing protection levels and the spatial clustering of unprotected species, greatly influence outcomes. Unprotected species are shown to be spatially clustered in some countries but not in others, and the representation of different taxa among unprotected species is found to vary significantly across countries. Some countries can achieve full protection within the 30 percent territorial limit, while others may need to exceed it. However, in all cases, spatial clustering enables significant protection gains through modest expansions of protected areas, demonstrating a path forward for enhancing biodiversity conservation within global commitments.Publication Empowering Migrant Women(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-11)Do undocumented forced migrants change their propensity to report or commit a crime when they are granted proper documentation, a job permit, and access to social services? This paper examines the impacts of a regularization program that granted temporary economic rights to over 281,000 undocumented Venezuelan forced migrants in Colombia. The program resulted in a general reduction in crimes committed by forced migrants, also while increasing the number of domestic abuse and sex crimes female migrants reported. These findings suggest that empowerment and greater trust in local authorities are key mechanisms driving the behavioral changes for females, while proper enforcement facilitated by adequate documentation and the positive income effects of the program reduced the general propensity for migrants to commit crimes.Publication The Exposure of Workers to Artificial Intelligence in Low- and Middle-Income Countries(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-02-05)Research on the labor market implications of artificial intelligence has focused principally on high-income countries. This paper analyzes this issue using microdata from a large set of low- and middle-income countries, applying a measure of potential artificial intelligence occupational exposure to a harmonized set of labor force surveys for 25 countries, covering a population of 3.5 billion people. The approach advances work by using harmonized microdata at the level of individual workers, which allows for a multivariate analysis of factors associated with exposure. Additionally, unlike earlier papers, the paper uses highly detailed (4 digit) occupation codes, which provide a more reliable mapping of artificial intelligence exposure to occupation. Results within countries, show that artificial intelligence exposure is higher for women, urban workers, and those with higher education. Exposure decreases by country income level, with high exposure for just 12 percent of workers in low-income countries and 15 percent of workers in lower-middle-income countries. Furthermore, lack of access to electricity limits effective exposure in low-income countries. These results suggest that for developing countries, and in particular low-income countries, the labor market impacts of artificial intelligence will be more limited than in high-income countries. While greater exposure to artificial intelligence indicates larger potential for future changes in certain occupations, it does not equate to job loss, as it could result in augmentation of worker productivity, automation of some tasks, or both.Publication What are the Main Variables that Influence the Dynamics of Ecuador’s Sovereign Risk?(Taylor & Francis, 2023-01-16)This paper analyzes the determinants of Ecuador’s sovereign spreads as measured by the EMBI index. We use Bayesian algorithms to estimate a structural vector autoregressive model with three blocks (international, regional, and domestic). Global variables drive most of the dynamics of the Ecuadorian EMBI, also influenced by the evolution of sovereign risks in other Latin American countries like Chile and Peru. We likewise show that the increase in public debt is the primary domestic variable affecting the Ecuadorian EMBI.