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We are pleased to announce the publication of IPC One Pager #47, “Conditional Cash Transfers: Why Targeting and Conditionalities Could Fail”. The author, Guy Standing, Professor of Economic Security, University of Bath, United Kingdom, argues that targeting and conditionalities for cash transfers are both unnecessary and counter-productive. Instead, he prefers a universal, non-conditional income grant. He maintains that cash transfers are preferable to commodity-based assistance, such as food aid, because poor families have freedom in choosing how to spend the money. But targeting such transfers to poor families is difficult in low-income countries where household incomes are insecure and fluctuating and attaching conditionalities to them, such as for health or education, assumes that poor families are either irrational or uninformed about their vital long-term interests.



Available online at: http://www.undp-povertycentre.org/pub/IPCOnePager47.pdf


See the recent related IPC One Pager #44, “’Growing Pains’: Key Challenges for New Conditional Cash Transfer Programmes in Latin America” and IPC’s Evaluation Note #1, “Evaluating the Impact of Brazil’s Bolsa Família: Cash Transfer Programmes in Comparative Perspective”.



These latter two publications are part of IPC’s ongoing research programme on “Cash Transfers and Social Protection”.



Other IPC publications at: http://www.undp-povertycentre.org/ipcpublications.htm