 Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs aim at reducing poverty in the short term through cash transfers while at the same time trying to encourage investments into the human capital of the next generation by making these transfers conditional upon regular school attendance or the regular use of preventive health care services. Excitement about these programs is tremendous and they are spreading rapidly (see below).
In addition to the policy design twist of including the condition as a receipt of social assistance, the first generation of conditional cash transfers (mostly but not exclusively in Latin American middle income countries) have been marked by unusually good implementation with respect to targeting, general administration and impact evaluation. From these programs we learn that well implemented CCT programs designed appropriately for their settings can have a wide range of good outcomes. In the first evaluations targeting has been excellent. Food consumption has increased and dietary quality as well. Use of preventive health services (immunization, growth monitoring) has increased and some indicators of health improved. School enrollments have improved in many countries and grade levels and child labor decreased in some.
The programs are, of course, not a panacea. They generate full synergies between social assistance and human capital development only where the supply of health and education services is extensive and of reasonable quality. They are administratively quite demanding. These two features mean that their use in low income countries requires some challenging and note yet well tested adaptations. The targeting mechanisms used most widely to date in CCTs (proxy means testing and geographic targeting) are relatively static, so that so far they are not well suited to helping families facing sudden periods of adversity. They address a specific demographic group and are thus not sufficient as a full safety net. Finally, we would expect that as programs are implemented in more diverse circumstances and of more variable quality, impacts will also become more variable. CCTs are such a fast growing part of safety net policy that we are attempting to collect a wide variety of documents and reports on the operational experience with these programs. This process is on-going and new country/program information will be added as it becomes available. Last updated: November 3, 2006 
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