Unconditional Cash Transfers The Better Approach To Alleviate Extreme Poverty

Essay from the year 2019 in the subject Business economics - Miscellaneous, grade: 1,0, University of Copenhagen, language: English, abstract: This essay aims to investigate the effects of conditional and unconditional cash transfer and its ́impacts on alleviating poverty. Although the number of people living in extreme poverty has declined significantly in recent years, today it still accounts for over 10% of the world’s population living on less than $1.90 a day. An internationally agreed goal is to reduce this number to zero by 2030 A common approach to bring people out of poverty and kick-start a virtuous cycle are direct cash transfers . Conditional cash transfers (CCTs), such as microcredits, as they are granted by the Grameen Bank for almost three decades, have generated considerable hope and enthusiasm for fast poverty reduction. However, in recent years there are increasing numbers of studies reporting no poverty alleviating effects and even talk about negative impact. The organization GiveDirectly (GD), founded in 2011, pursues a different approach with the allocation of unconditional cash transfers (UCTs).

This book takes a new approach on understanding causes of extreme poverty and promising actions to address it. Its focus is on marginality being a root cause of poverty and deprivation. “Marginality” is the position of people on the edge, preventing their access to resources, freedom of choices, and the development of capabilities. The book is research based with original empirical analyses at local, national, and local scales; book contributors are leaders in their fields and have backgrounds in different disciplines. An important message of the book is that economic and ecological approaches and institutional innovations need to be integrated to overcome marginality. The book will be a valuable source for development scholars and students, actors that design public policies, and for social innovators in the private sector and non-governmental organizations.​

Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs aim to reduce poverty by making welfare programs conditional upon the receivers' actions. That is, the government only transfers the money to persons who meet certain criteria. These criteria may include enrolling children into public schools, getting regular check-ups at the doctor's office, receiving vaccinations, or the like. They have been hailed as a way of reducing inequality and helping households break out of a vicious cycle whereby poverty is transmitted from one generation to another. Do these and other claims make sense? Are they supported by the available empirical evidence? This volume seeks to answer these and other related questions. Specifically, it lays out a conceptual framework for thinking about the economic rationale for CCTs; it reviews the very rich evidence that has accumulated on CCTs; it discusses how the conceptual framework and the evidence on impacts should inform the design of CCT programs in practice; and it discusses how CCTs fit in the context of broader social policies. The authors show that there is considerable evidence that CCTs have improved the lives of poor people and argue that conditional cash transfers have been an effective way of redistributing income to the poor. They also recognize that even the best-designed and managed CCT cannot fulfill all of the needs of a comprehensive social protection system. They therefore need to be complemented with other interventions, such as workfare or employment programs, and social pensions.

* Argues strongly for overlooked approach to development by showing how the poor use money in ways that confound stereotypical notions of aid and handouts * Team authored by foremost scholars in the development field Amid all the complicated economic theories about the causes and solutions to poverty, one idea is so basic it seems radical: just give money to the poor. Despite its skeptics, researchers have found again and again that cash transfers given to significant portions of the population transform the lives of recipients. Countries from Mexico to South Africa to Indonesia are giving money directly to the poor and discovering that they use it wisely “ to send their children to school, to start a business and to feed their families. Directly challenging an aid industry that thrives on complexity and mystification, with highly paid consultants designing ever more complicated projects, Just Give Money to the Pooroffers the elegant southern alternative “ bypass governments and NGOs and let the poor decide how to use their money. Stressing that cash transfers are not charity or a safety net, the authors draw an outline of effective practices that work precisely because they are regular, guaranteed and fair. This book, the first to report on this quiet revolution in an accessible way, is essential reading for policymakers, students of international development and anyone yearning for an alternative to traditional poverty-alleviation methods.

This book provides in-depth descriptions and analysis of how cash transfer programs have evolved and been used in Sub-Saharan Africa since 2000. The analysis focuses on program features and implementation, but it also highlights political economy issues and current knowledge gaps.

More children born today will survive to adulthood than at any time in history. It is now time to emphasize health and development in middle childhood and adolescence--developmental phases that are critical to health in adulthood and the next generation. Child and Adolescent Health and Development explores the benefits that accrue from sustained and targeted interventions across the first two decades of life. The volume outlines the investment case for effective, costed, and scalable interventions for low-resource settings, emphasizing the cross-sectoral role of education. This evidence base can guide policy makers in prioritizing actions to promote survival, health, cognition, and physical growth throughout childhood and adolescence.

The book brings together a series of contributions with a common goal of reflecting the links between economic development and rural development. The scenario is dotted not only with old and new wounds but also with innovative strategies in an attempt to overcome existing delays. The chapters of the book are composed of scenarios full of case studies. The plans to be adopted to help the countries that have lagged behind fueled an intense debate since the obstacles to development, as evidenced by the extensive scientific literature available, now appeared to be the realities present in the socio-economic structures of a large number of villages. Although the data available are still few, it is assumed that the Covid-19 pandemic will make a landscape already full of criticalities even more fragile.