A technical team at MIFAMILIA was responsible for the initial program design, targeting and beneficiary selection as well as the program’s overall implementation and monitoring activities.¹ The operational design of the program took advantage of the existing Nicaraguan Conditional Cash Transfer program (the Red de Proteccion Social) and relied heavily on collaborations with various local actors, including community leaders, the municipal administrations, teachers, NGOs and other organizations and private service providers with relevant operational experience.

Coordination with ministries and local government authorities

The technical team at MIFAMILIA was responsible for the overall coordination with the ministry of education (MECD), health (MINSA), and the national institute for vocational training (INATEC) as well as for coordination with each of the municipal administrations and local actors involved in different components of the program. For example, the implementation of the educational component relied on monitoring by the local school teachers in coordination with the local representative of the education ministry who would then report to MIFAMILIA. Similarly, the implementation of the health component was designed to rely on MINSA’s ability to expand coverage of service or complement existing ones through municipal health centers and their mobile teams (see further below).  The various vocational training courses were organized to be delivered by INATEC in each of the 6 municipalities.

For the implementation of all the different components, the program relied on close collaboration with the municipal administrations. In each municipality, a local staff person was assigned to serve as a liaison between MIFAMILIA and the beneficiary households. This municipal staff person was envisioned to facilitate, coordinate, and monitor the various activities of the program at the municipal level, and to improve information flows and communication.

Links with civil society and private providers

A number of private service providers were contracted to: 1) evaluate for which occupational skills and potential businesses there was sufficient demand in local and regional markets; 2) work directly with each beneficiary household and provide them with technical assistance for the selection of appropriate training courses, for the development of appropriate business plans, and for exploring links with wider markets for new businesses and occupations; and 3) organize workshops on business development and labor market skills for beneficiary households. These providers were selected through competitive bidding processes where local NGOs and other entities with relevant experience were invited to participate. Preference was given to organizations with experience in the region and on the issues above. The team at MIFAMILIA oversaw and monitored their activities and provided advice and guidelines in terms of the implementation of these services. They also evaluated and approved the proposed business plans of the matching grant beneficiaries and the course selection for the occupational training.

Links within the municipality and beneficiary communities

In each community, beneficiaries were organized in small groups (of about 10 people) and each group elected two members as the group’s promotoras/es. These promotoras played a key in coordinating and passing program-related information to all the beneficiaries, clarifying program rules and conditionalities to beneficiaries, assuring participation of all beneficiaries in program meetings and activities, and in providing informal guidance and support to the beneficiaries. 

Community leaders provided additional support and typically facilitated information flows between the beneficiaries and the municipal liaison, and the different providers. As explained above, community leaders also played an important role in assuring completeness of initial data collection.

Program costs

Using accounting records to reconstruct program (administrative) costs and transfers to beneficiary households (both direct monetary transfers and the value of services provided), the total costs for the intervention in the 6 municipalities of this pilot are $1,883,000. Out of these costs, US$ 423,000 where administrative costs (including operational costs and costs for program design and targeting) while the remaining are direct and indirect transfers to program beneficiaries (US$ 1,460,000). In terms of costs per household, the average annual cost per household was US$ 628 out of which $321 are direct transfers to beneficiaries, $165 are indirect transfers to beneficiaries and $141 are administrative costs. Note that the actual cost and transfers per household differs across households, depending on which of the 3 program packages they received and on household demographics (e.g. the number of school-aged children).

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1 The World Bank and JHU provided technical assistance for program design, targeting and selection, and coordinated impact evaluation activities with MIFAMILIA.