Making a difference

As part of her visit to the country to take part in the annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank’s Board of Governors, Pamela Cox took time to meet with beneficiaries of the “Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program” or 4 Ps.

The 4 Ps, also known as the CCT or Conditional Cash Transfer program, is funded through a loan extended to the government by the World Bank, of which Cox is vice president for the East Asia and Pacific Region. You could also say that, as World Bank vice president for Latin America for the previous seven years (she assumed her current post last January), Cox is a “midwife” of the CCT, having observed its practice and growth from Mexico to the rest of Latin and Central America, and monitored its implementation. Now she is observing how the program is taking shape in the Philippines.

In Taguig, where she was accompanied by Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman, Cox met with mostly women beneficiaries, visiting them in their homes, dropping by a community health clinic where prenatal services were being delivered, and attending a family development class, one of the requirements for 4 Ps families, where parenting tips were being shared. “But they were all women,” Cox remarks dryly, although conceding that since her visit took place on a weekday afternoon, “the men may have been busy elsewhere.”

One of the women Cox visited in their homes was Lorna Malabanan Cruz, 36, married to Danielo Bulatao, 40, and with whom she has four children. Two children are in high school (the eldest son graduated with honors recently), while the younger ones are enrolled at the Taguig Elementary School.

Lorna said she uses the 4Ps subsidies (P500 per child, up to three children) for her children’s school needs and other necessities like transportation. But the family’s survival needs are met by her and her husband’s fish vending business, recently expanded with help from a loan through the SEA-K (or Self-Employment Assistance-Kaunlaran), a program conceived to bridge beneficiary families from dependence on subsidies to financial independence.

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“CCT programs are investments in the future,” says Cox. “It keeps children in school and keeps them healthy,” since beneficiaries are required to visit government health centers regularly for services like vaccinations, deworming, and prenatal care.

Conditional cash transfer programs began in Mexico about 14 years ago, conceived initially to address the high drop-out rate among school-age children, says Cox. “It was not patterned after welfare programs,” she notes, since families were required to meet certain conditions to qualify for the cash transfers, foremost of which was keeping the children in school.

Known as “Bolsa Familya” or “Family’s Pocket,” the program in Mexico was so successful that it was eventually adopted by the governments of Brazil, Colombia, Chile, and even Turkey. It was then that the World Bank became interested in the program, promoting it and convincing “middle-income” countries like the Philippines to adopt it by offering concessional loans and other forms of assistance.

A World Bank document says the program, if successful, “could serve as a primary pillar of a coherent social protection program.”

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One innovation introduced in the Philippines, says Cox, is that there is a “term limit” for each beneficiary family, who will receive the subsidy for a maximum of five years after which they are expected to transition into self-reliance with the help of programs like the SEA-K for would-be entrepreneurs, or priority employment for 4 Ps families in government projects.

In Mexico and Brazil, on the other hand, the CCT programs continue for as long as a family needs the subsidies. In Mexico, says Cox, children of beneficiary families who are graduating from high school receive a cash grant. This is not just a “reward” for staying in school, she says, but also “to help the young people start a small business or help them look for a job.”

“Ideally, all children should finish high school,” says the World Bank official, citing how their chances of employment or self-employment would improve immensely with skills and literacy. One function of the cash assistance, then, could also be to hold off the temptation, even for the child, to drop out of school and start earning an income.

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A 30-year veteran at the World Bank, Cox is an economist with an early focus on agricultural and environmental issues in both Latin America and South Asia.

As vice president for East Asia and Pacific, she oversees a vast range of programs, most of them dealing with social inclusion and protection. In the Philippines, she says, there is a “large portfolio” of projects, ranging from road infrastructure to potable water. “Infrastructure also benefits the poor,” she points out when this columnist asks if the World Bank has moved away from financing “large infrastructure projects” like dams and bridges to programs like the 4 Ps.

To illustrate, she cites a project with Manila Water, a large private concessioner, to provide potable water to poor neighborhoods while undertaking to construct a major sewage system in the metropolis. “Clean water and sanitation are very important,” she declares.

Cox says her motivation when she joined the World Bank was to see what she could do “to make a difference to poor people across the world.” She may have found that difference in her promotion of conditional cash transfers as a “bridging” mechanism to see the most vulnerable families through abject poverty into a more dignified existence.

“Don’t look on it as a dole-out,” she pleads. “Rather, look at the experience in other countries and learn how it has made a real difference.”