Cash transfer program reaching more poor

The Philippines’ Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program has achieved better targeting outcomes compared to similar programs in other countries where it has been implemented for decades, the Asian Development Bank said.

The Special Evaluation Study on ADB’s Social Protection Strategy released by the Manila-based agency yesterday shows the initial evaluation results of the Aquino administration’s Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program.

The study showed that in the first year of its implementation in 2009, about 71 percent of the beneficiaries belonged to the poorest 20 percent of the population, and accounted for 74 percent of the program’s total benefits.

“These results suggest that the Philippine CCT program has achieved better targeting outcomes than similar programs of other countries in East Asia and the Pacific as well as in Latin America, where CCT programs started decades ago,” the report said.

The ADB also compared the Pantawid Pamilya to the National Food Authority’s Rice Subsidy Program, one of the Philippines’ long-standing food-based social assistance programs, and it showed that it only reached 47.7 percent of poor households after almost 50 years of implementation.

“The CCT has been successful at targeting the poor, exceeding the performance of the longstanding, broad-based rice subsidy,” the report said.

The CCT program of the Philippines is based on a national household targeting system, with the main goal of identifying poor households across the country.

The Pantawid Pamilya is a national cash transfer program conditional on investments in child education and health, and regular and prenatal and postnatal checkups for women.

The program was launched in 2008 and has since covered more than three million poor households across the country.

The ADB has provided a $400 million loan in 2010 for the program to support project administration and capacity development.

By 2014, 4.6 million households are expected to be covered by the Pantawid Pamilya. The program provides health grants to poor households with children aged 0 to 14 years old, and/or pregnant women. It is set at P500 per month, regardless of the number of children aged 14 and below.

Pregnant women are required to have prenatal/postnatal consultations, children aged five and below will have regular growth monitoring, and kids aged 6 to 14 years old will take deworming tablets twice a year.

Meanwhile educational grants are given to children 6 to 14 years old, to a maximum of three children per family.

Each child will receive P300 per month, provided that they are enrolled in a primary or secondary school and maintain a class attendance of 85 percent each month.

The study showed that the CCT has resulted to increased enrollment in day care or preschool, and in the elementary grades.

“Enrollment in day care or preschool is 10 percent higher (3–5 year olds) in beneficiary households than in non-beneficiary households, elementary 5 percent higher (6–11 year olds), and elementary and high school 5 percent higher (12–14 year olds),” the ADB said.

Initial findings also showed that there has been an increase in household consumption, including expenditure on education and health in Pantawid barangays compared to non-Pantawid barangays.

There has also been higher attendance at health clinics among Pantawid Pamilya households.

On the average, the report said that Pantawid Pamilya beneficiaries receive an annual cash transfer of P10,648, equivalent to 16 percent of their reported income.

The ADB said that the Philippine government’s CCT program costs less than 0.5 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, yet it reaches 15 million people.

The ADB said that this proves that well-targeted safety nets are not prohibitively expensive, despite concerns that the costs of universal social protection are deterring some countries.

“While safety nets, and particularly conditional cash transfers, can reduce poverty, some countries still prefer to retain food and fuel subsidies for their social programs,” the ADB said.

“In India, the government distributes food, fuel, and fertilizer instead of cash, but these subsidies are vulnerable to misuse and leakage. In addition, such subsidies generally cost more, benefit the better-off relative to the poor and are politically difficult to unwind,” the agency added.

The ADB study finds that social protection systems in most Asian countries fall far short of meeting the needs of the poor and vulnerable even though better safety nets can be affordable for poorer countries.

It said that public spending on social protection in Asia and the Pacific is lower than in any part of the world expect for Sub-Saharan Africa.

“Recent economic and financial crises, food and fuel emergencies, and the rapidly increasing frequency of natural disasters have starkly exposed the inadequacy of the region’s national social protection systems to guarantee a minimum level of subsistence and meet people’s basic needs,” the ADB said.

“Governments around the world tend to scramble to adopt social protection programs in times of crisis,” Vinod Thomas, Director General of Independent Evaluation, said.

“But comprehensive systems built in stable years are much more effective in coping with the human impact of future economic or political crises or natural disasters,” Thomas added.

The study further recommended that ADB, in partnership with others, must strengthen its support on social protection, especially since it is an integral part of the agency’s strategy to reduce poverty and promote inclusive growth.

ADB’s portfolio of loans for social protection projects and programs totaled $2.2 billion between 2002 and 2011. –ANGELA CELIS, Businessmirror