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Institutions and governance
Administrative capacity of central and sub-national governments
Marco Stampini,
IDB-ADB South-South learning event on Conditional Cash Transfers
Manila, 16-19 April 2013
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Alternative frameworks
Vertical model: the central government retains most
operational responsibilities through the setup of dedicated
program structures at various subnational levels
e.g. Jamaica, Peru, Mexico (the national coordination ofOportunidades established 32 state delegations)
Horizontal model: program implementation is largely
performed through subnational governments e.g. Colombia and Brazil (most of the implementation ofBrazils
Bolsa Familia is performed by the 5,700 municipal governments,
based on contracts signed with the federal government)
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Vertical Vs Horizontal model
Vertical Horizontal
Faster and more
homogeneous program
implementation
More centralized
institutional memory
Easier to implement in small
countries
May reduce administrative
conflict between the federal
and subnationalgovernments
Reduces competition with
overlapping local programs
Increases local ownership
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Central government responsibilities
Defining the policy agenda
Planning (design and evaluation)
Regulating
Budgeting
CCT programs tend to be housed either in strong social
development ministries or in lighter ministriescomplemented by strong program agencies (e.g. in
Mexico)
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Institutional coordination
CCT implementation requires a complex web of
institutional actors
Sector coordination with education and health is key to
ensuring that CCTs achieve their human capital
development objectives Creation of a national steering committee
E.g. Oportunidades National Council comprises secretaries
of state for education, health, social security, social
development as well as state governments
Regional and local coordination committees
In many cases, strong coordination links with
municipal governments
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Key operational functions
(1) Beneficiary selection and registration
(2) Delivering complementary services (e.g. edu and health)
(3) Monitoring and evaluation
(4) Customer care and case management
(5) Monitoring beneficiary co-responsibilities
(6) Payment of cash transfers
(7) Auditing
(8) Recertification and graduation
Can be shared between central and local governments
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Delivering complementary services
(e.g. education and health)
CCT programs housed in social protection ministries Traditionally in charge of smaller social assistance programs
Most staff with social work background
CCTs have unprecedented scale, in terms of both budget
and number of beneficiary households
They require multi-sector skills that are usually available
only across ministries
Bringing on board education and health is a big
challenge and requires full support from the highest
government hierarchies
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Delivering complementary services
(e.g. education and health)
In many countries, limited service coverage has weakened theefficacy of the conditional transfers and produced a relaxed
interpretation of the conditionalities
In Mexico:
Eligible people living in localities without adequate supply of schools andhealth services are directed to the unconditional cash transfer program PAL
Also due to difficult access to schools, in 2011 over 4 million children and
youths (8 to 21 years old) from Oportunidades beneficiary families did not
receive the education benefit
In Brazil: To support Bolsa Familia conditions, over the period 2012-13 the country is
building 2,100 new basic health facilities and implementing a full-time
study policy for 17,500 primary schools
li i l i
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Delivering complementary services
(e.g. education and health) What has not worked:
Plans to expand network of education and health-care facilities
jointly with the rollout of the CCT program
Hopes that increased service supply would be fostered by bottom-
up political pressure from the communities of beneficiary
households (driven for example by beneficiary mothers and local
leaders)
Lesson:
It is important to design program co-responsibilities consideringthe existing network of services, and the budget available for its
expansion
Strong political support from the highest government ranks is
needed to produce the required inter-sectorial coordination
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Customer care and case management
A customer service is required to handle the relationship between
the program and beneficiary households
Most interactions regard requests of information and guidance,
the application process, complaints on program malfunctioning
The Brazilian relationship center responsible for providing
information and collecting feedback on all MDS social protection
programs
It operates via telephone (24-hours a day service), mail, e-mail, fax, and
face-to-face assistance; a chat service is forthcoming The center employs 232 contractual staff
In 2012, it attended 3.8 million calls and replied to 108,000 messages. Most
calls were related to registry verification (43%), payments (9.8%) and value
of the benefit (9.7%)
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Customer care and case management
Lessons:
Customer services play an important role in connecting programmanagers to the base of beneficiaries, providing useful feedback
for program improvement
The early phases of beneficiary registration and transfer paymentsare likely to generate high demand for clarification and case
assessment Early setup of support units aimed to help
customers understand procedures, request status verification and
channel complaints
Customer services are more efficient when separated from basic
operations (such as beneficiary registration and payment), as they
can give clients full attention and focus on improving responsetime
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Monitoring beneficiary co-responsibilities
Education and health service providers are usually tasked
with the collection of data on compliance with program
co-responsibilities
Data is either delivered to: Local authorities for consolidation and transfer to the national
health or education authorities (e.g. Brazil)
Local staff of the CCT program (e.g. Mexico), that is responsible
to consolidate and deliver to the national coordinator of theprogram
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Monitoring beneficiary co-responsibilities
Conditionalities monitoring routine of Bolsa Famlia (Brazil)
Source: MDS
MSD
defines the roster of
beneficiaries MoH / MECIdentify the beneficiaries to be
monitored through specific IT systems
Municipalities collect and imputedata on conditionality compliance
in specific IT systems
MoH / MECconsolidate the data collected by the
municipalities
MSDIdentifies those that are not
complying and the triggered
consequences
MSD informs the families about the
implications (through letters and
payment receipts)
Municipalities and States
Assess the case and the need for
special social services
Municipalitiesimpute data on families
assisted by special social
services
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Monitoring beneficiary co-responsibilities
Bolsa Familia:
Failure by a member to comply with its co-responsibilityeventually triggers the interruption of the payment for the
whole family
The interruption is not immediate, being preceded by
warnings (delivered also through the bank receipt when thefamily representative attempts to cash the transfer) and
verifications by local authorities
Oportunidades:
Failure to comply with schooling conditionalities does nottrigger the interruption of the payment. Beneficiary
households stop receiving the beca (i.e. the scholarship
component of the CCT) but keep cashing the base benefit,
unless they fail to comply with healthcare co-responsibilities
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Monitoring beneficiary co-responsibilities
Lessons:
Monitoring of co-responsibilities must be integratedwith social work
Although the incentive to comply is important, the
suspension of the transfer may further aggravate
beneficiaries difficulties
Important contribution to M&E, in relation to
performance of CCT complementary services
Foster innovations, such as the adoption of specific
education records for CCT beneficiaries, or the payment of
transportation for pregnant women attending antenatal
consultations (Brazil)
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Auditing
Effective audit requires a combination of top-down and
bottom-up approaches.
Intensive use of information technology
Bolsa Familia: data matching with national formal employmentand wages registry, death registry, retirement and pensions
registries
Publishing of full roster of beneficiaries on the internet
Brazil, Honduras, Mexico
Promotion of social accountability
Mother beneficiaries in Colombias Familias en Accin
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Recertification and graduation
Hot topic in LAC policy
debate, due to
simultaneous CCT and GDP
growth
Exit Versus Graduation
Exit can be determined by: Failure to comply with co-responsibilities
Loss of categorical targeting condition (e.g. children end school)
Graduation is the consequence of the household no longer
requiring CCT assistance (sustainable independence). It
depends on many external factors
Source: Stampini and Tornarolli (2012)
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Recertification and graduation
Exit mechanisms:
The beneficiary declares loss of eligibility criteria (effective only
if combined with sophisticated audit)
In Brazils Bolsa Familia, a beneficiary declaring that her income is now
above the eligibility threshold can retain the bank card and accelerate
re-entry if income drops. Failure to declare triggers expulsion
Recertification
In Mexicos Oportunidades, recalculation of the proxy means score
every six years, triggering either/or:i. Permanence in the program
ii. Transition to Esquema Diferenciado de Apoyos (EDA), a reduced
support scheme including education benefits for intermediate
and high school students as well as access to a basic health care
iii. Exit
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Recertification and graduation
Country and program RecertificationBrazil Bolsa Familia Every 2 yearsColombia Ms Familias en Accion Every 4 yearsHonduras PRAF -Jamaica PATH Every 4 yearsMexico Oportunidades Every 5 yearsPeru Juntos Every 4 years
Lessons:
Increasing coverage is easier than implementing effective graduationpolicies (identifying the poor and transferring the money is easier than
ensuring exit from poverty)
Periodic recertification has been useful to limit leakage, and to adjust
the value of the benefits to changes in demographic characteristics and
socioeconomic status
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Thank you
Questions and comments:
mstampini@iadb.org
R.Paes@ids.ac.ukferdinandor@iadb.org