PROMISING PRACTICESWHAT WORKS:
ANNOTATEDBIBLIOGRAPHYLESSONSIN THE USE
OF CASH TRANSFERS
What Works: Lessons in the Use of Cash Transfers
In alphabetical order by author

Annotated Bibliography
In alphabetical order by author

WHAT IS THE PROMISING PRACTICES DATABASE?
The Promising Practices Database was created in 2015 to collate evaluations of antislavery and counter-trafficking programs in a searchable format, so that stakeholders
can quickly identify what works — and what does not — through a simple search bycountry, target population, type or sector of slavery, or type of intervention. The theoryis that we can learn from the evaluations already undertaken, even if the learning is‘there is a lot we don’t know.’ The Database is currently undergoing an update to include
program evaluations published since 2015, due for release in mid-2020. The informationin this annotated bibliography is current as of December 31, 2015
The Progresa program (Angelucci, 2004;de Janvry et al, 2006; Stecklov et al, 2005;
Rosati et al, 2012)

Angelucci, M 2004, Aid and Migration: an analysisof the impact of Progresa on the timing and size oflabour migration, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
[accessed 15/04/2020].

The Progresa (later renamed Oportunidades) programin Mexico successfully decreased child labour andincreased school attendance. Progresa is a national
conditional cash transfer program which began in
1997 to reduce child labour by making transfers tovulnerable families in rural villages (de Janvry, 2006).
These transfers were conditional on families meeting
specific health and school attendance outcomes fortheir children (Rosati et al, 2012). Several evaluationsin the Database analysed the data from this programto identify its impact on child labour, migration,access to education, and school attendance.
The program included an independent impact
evaluation, with longitudinal survey data, whichallowed these evaluations to draw robust conclusions
about the program’s effectiveness. The program
was able to decrease the probability of child labour
in response to an unemployment shock, however
it was not able to mitigate the risk of child labour
in response to illness or natural disaster shocks.

de Janvry, A, Finan, F, Sadoulet, E, & Vakis, R 2006, ‘Can
Conditional Cash Transfer Programs Serve as Safety
Nets in Keeping Children at School and From Working
When Exposed to Shocks?’ Journal of Development
Economics vol. 79, no. 2, pp. 349-373. [accessed15/04/2020].

Promising Practices

Stecklov, G, Winters, P, Stampini, M, & Davis, B 2005
‘Do Conditional Cash Transfers Influence Migration?
A Study Using Experimental Data from the Mexican
PROGRESA Program’ Demography vol. 42, no. 4, pp.
769-790. [accessed 15/04/2020].
Rosati, F C, Ranzani, M, Guarcello, L, Lyon, S, Breglia,M G, & Campos, P 2012, The Mexican experience in
reducing child labour: Empirical evidence and policy
lessons, Understanding Children’s Work (UCW)
Programme. [accessed 15/04/2020].

What Works: Lessons in the Use of Cash Transfers

Annotated Bibliography

School Attendance, Child Labor and CashTransfers: An Impact Evaluation of PANES(Amarante, Ferrando, and Vigiorito, 2011).

The Impact Of Cash Transfers On Child
Labor And School Attendance In Brazil(Cardosa and Souza, 2004).

In Uruguay, the PANES program operated a
conditional cash transfer component entitled ‘Ingreso
Cludadano’, which sought to reduce child labour andincrease school attendance. The transfers included
a monthly ‘citizen income’ or ‘Ingreso ciudadano’ of
US$56 which equalled approximately half the average
income self-reported by households before project
implementation. Furthermore, larger households withchildren or pregnant women were eligible to receive
electronic debit cards for food. The value of thesecards varied from US$13 to US$30. The evaluationassessed the program’s impact on child labour andschool attendance through surveys conducted
two months following the project’s conclusion andemployed regression discontinuity and difference-indifference approaches to analyse the data.
The program did not have an impact on child labouror school attendance, and evaluators suggested
redesigning the program to influence outcomes at
the household level by either increasing transfer
sizes, providing incentives for completion, or varying
transfers in relation to household size.

The Bolsa Escola Federal program is a conditional
cash transfer program in Brazil which sought toincrease school attendance and reduce child labour.
The program utilised data from a national census
in 2000 at a micro household level, in conjunction
with propensity score methods in order to examine
the impact of conditional transfers on achieving
the objectives to reduce child labour and increase
school attendance. The program was found to haveno significant effect on child labour, but did increase
school attendance, perhaps due to the small size ofthe transfer.

Amarante, V, Ferrando, M. and Vigorito, A 2011, School
Attendance, Child Labor and Cash Transfers: An Impact
Evaluation of PANES, PIERI Poverty and Economic
Policy (PEP) Research Network. [accessed 15/04/2020].

What Happens Once the Intervention Ends?
The Medium-Term Impacts of a CashTransfer Experiment in Malawi(Baird et al, 2015).
In Malawi, the Zomba Cash Transfer Programme
involved both conditional and non-conditional cashtransfers. The objectives of the program were toimprove welfare, delay marriage and encourageschool attendance for girls, and to generate research
to understand the impact of cash transfer programs.
The evaluation, entitled the ‘Schooling, Income andHealth Risk (SIHR)’ study incorporated randomised
control trials, baseline and follow up longitudinal data
to evaluate the impact of the project on outcomesfrom education to health to sexual behaviour. The
program analysed both CCTs and NCTs two andfive years from baseline, and found that while at twoyears after project end, CCTs were more successful
in improving school outcomes, NCTs were more
successful in reducing teen pregnancies and earlymarriage. However, at five years after project end,
these results tended to disappear suggesting thatteen pregnancies and early marriage were onlydelayed, but not prevented.

Cardosa, E, & Portela Souza, A 2004, The Impact Of
Cash Transfers On Child Labor And School Attendance
In Brazil, Vanderbilt University Department ofEconomics. [accessed 15/04/2020].

The Effect of Conditional Transfers on
School Performance and Child Labor:
Evidence from an Ex-Post Impact
Evaluation in Costa Rica (Duryeaand Morrison, 2004).
The Superémonos program is a conditional cashtransfer providing food coupons to families in poverty
in Costa Rica. While there was no specific objective
to reduce the incidence of child labour, the evaluation
itself included an analysis of the program’s impact
on child labour (Duryea and Morrison, 2004). Theevaluation was based on three different means ofanalysis, including simple data comparison, regression
analysis, and propensity score matching to measure
the change in school attendance, performance andchild labour as could be attributed to the project.
The program was found to have a positive effect onschool attendance, but did not materially affect school
performance or reduce the likelihood of child labour.
Duryea, S & Morrison, A 2004, The Effect of Conditional
Transfers on School Performance and Child Labor:
Evidence from an Ex-Post Impact Evaluation in Costa
Rica, Inter-American Development Bank (IADB).
[accessed 15/04/2020].

Baird, S, Ephraim, C, McIntosh, C, & Özler, B 2015, What
Happens Once the Intervention Ends? The MediumTerm Impacts of a Cash Transfer Experiment in Malawi,
3ie International Initiative for Impact Evaluation.
[accessed 15/04/2020].

Promising Practices

What Works: Lessons in the Use of Cash Transfers

Annotated Bibliography

Poverty Alleviation and Child Labour(Edmonds and Shady, 2012).
The Bono de Desarrollo (BDH) program was a nonconditional cash transfer scheme. It was paid torandomly assigned poor families, while others in thetarget area who did not receive a transfer were used
as a control group. The transfers involved monthly
payments of US$15 to female heads of household,which accounted for seven percent of monthlyexpenditure. The evaluation included a sample of
1,488 randomly selected households and conductedbaseline and follow up surveys. These surveys informthe basis of this report. The program led to a 78
per cent decline in child labour outside the homeamong all participants, and 41 per cent decline forparticipants who were still children at baseline. Inside
the home, child labour decreased by 32 per cent.
Edmonds, E V & Schady, N 2012, ‘Poverty Alleviation andChild Labour’ American Economic Journal: EconomicPolicy vol.4, no.4, pp, 100-124. [accessed 15/04/2020].

Towards a child labour-free Philippines:
Building on past gains and addressing
challenges (Jersild and Lazo, 2013).
In the Philippines, the Program Against Child Labour
provided vulnerable families with a conditional
cash transfer and offered technical support andvocational training for project staff. The project’s
goal was to reduce the worst forms of child labour
by 75 per cent. The project evaluation involved desk
review of project documents, stakeholder interviews
and focus group discussions, and a comparison ofproject achievements prior to and following program
implementation. The program was successful in
reducing 75 per cent of child labour, however otherstated goals such as using data generated by theprogram to inform policy, were not met.
Jersild, A & Lazo, L 2013, Towards a child labour-freePhilippines: Building on past gains and addressing
challenges, International Labour Organisation.
[accessed 15/04/2020].

Educational and Child Labour Impactsof Two Food-for-Education Schemes:
Evidence from a Randomised Trial in
Rural Burkina Faso (Kazianga, Walqueand Alderman, 2012).
In Burkina Faso, the evaluation is of two conditional,transfer-in-kind programs, which had the aimof reducing child labour and increasing school
attendance. One program targeted schoolgirls from low
income families in the rural north and provided themwith 10kgs of cereal flour per month if the girls had a 90
per cent school attendance rate. The other programin the same region was provided to both boys and girls
and involved giving children free school meals. The
evaluation of the programs assessed for impact on childlabour through a randomised control trial. The program
increased school enrolment by 4 - 5 per cent, and hadsome impact on reducing child labour on farms whichwere potentially incompatible with school hours.
Kazianga, H, de Walque, D & Alderman, H 2012,‘Educational and Child Labour Impacts of Two Food-forEducation Schemes: Evidence from a Randomised Trialin Rural Burkina Faso’ Journal of African Economies vol.
21, no. 5, pp. 723-760. [accessed 15/04/2020].

Cash Transfers and Children’s Educationand Labour among Malawi’s Poor
(Miller and Tsoka, 2012)
This 2012 evaluation assessed the impact of Malawi’s
national social cash transfer scheme. The program
worked on the assumption that when households
receive cash injections, there is less need for children
to work, and therefore child labour will decrease as
school attendance increases. The evaluation focussed
on whether parents invest in education when theyreceive a transfer even when this investment is optional.
The evaluation included a randomised control trial
with surveys pre- and post- implementation, andused control groups for comparison. It was found thatthe program decreased child labour by 10 per centfor children who received the benefit. Further, thesechildren were five per cent more likely to be enrolled
in school, higher educational perspectives, and havefewer absences from school than their peers.
Miller, C & Tsoka, M 2012 ‘Cash Transfers andChildren’s Education and Labour among Malawi’s Poor’
Development Policy Review vol. 30, no. 4, pp. 499-522.
[accessed 15/04/2020].

Promising Practices

What Works: Lessons in the Use of Cash Transfers

Annotated Bibliography

Creating the enabling environment toestablish models for child labour free areas
in Kenya (Nycander and Riechi, 2013).
An International Labour Organisation project in
Kenya sought to create child labour free areas,
which included training for service providers andgovernment officials, advocacy, awareness raising,technical support for government, and conditional
cash transfers. The evaluation did not focus upon
the impact of conditional cash transfers and the
project description was ambiguous as to whether theassistance to young people to engage in commercial‘cash crops’ (such as coffee, cassava, tea and mira,
rice, sisal, and tobacco) was akin to a conditional
cash transfer. The evaluation recommended thatconditional cash transfers be implemented in future.
The evaluation was based on a desk review, interviews
with stakeholders, and focus group discussions. The
program led to significant numbers of children being
prevented and removed from child labour at 3,857 and
4,409 respectively, and directly financially supported
1,557 families of child labourers. The results surpassed
targets on all counts except for the targeting of boys
and girls for ‘protection’ or safety in workplaces.
Nycander, L & Riechi, A 2013, Creating the enabling
environment to establish models for child labour freeareas in Kenya - Final evaluation, International Labour
Organisation. [accessed 15/04/2020].

You Get What You Pay For:
Schooling Incentives and Child Labor(Edmonds and Shrestha, 2013).
In Nepal, the Sponsored Education Program
implemented by the GoodWeave Foundation
incorporated a conditional transfer program whichsought to increase school attendance and reducethe incidence of children weaving rugs. The program
involved three groups; Group A, who received nosupport but were monitored, Group B, who received
education related scholarships up to a capped limit,
and Group C who received a regular stipend, which wasa third of the cash earnings a child working in weaving
would make, provided as credit in a local food shop.
Group C also received further benefits if they regularly
went to school. The program ran for one school year.
The evaluation was based on data collected prior to,during, and after project implementation, and included
comparison groups, and statistical controls. The
program did not materially increase school attendance
but did improve school performance and children who
received the benefit were 48 per cent less likely to haveworked as a carpet weaver. However, the program wasmore effective for girls than boys, as girls were 64 percent less likely to weave while receiving the benefit.

Achievements and Shortfalls of Conditional
Cash Transfers: Impact Evaluation of
Paraguay’s Tekoporã Programme(Soares, Ribas and Hirata, 2008).
The Tekoporã program was a conditional cashtransfer program in Paraguay, which was alsocontingent on increasing school attendance andhealth levels in children. The aim of the program wasto encourage children attending school, increase
health levels through promoting check-ups andimmunisations, while also reducing child labour.
The program had reached over 4,300 households byJune 2006. The evaluation included the survey dataof 1,401 households and utilised existing statistical
data such as the Index of Quality of Life to assess
the program through a propensity score matching
method. The program had no impact on child labour,
however the program did have positive effects on
school attendance and performance, household
expenditure, household savings, agricultural
production investments, and vegetable cultivation.
Soares, F V, Ribas, R, & Hirata, G 2008, Achievementsand Shortfalls of Conditional Cash Transfers: Impact
Evaluation of Paraguay’s Tekoporã Programme,
International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth.
[accessed 15/04/2020].

The Impact of School Quality on
Child Labour and School Attendance:
The Case of CONAFE Compensatory
Education Program (Rosati andRossi, 2007)
The Compensatory Education Program (CONAFE)
implemented in Mexico included the provision ofconditional cash transfers to teachers and principals
in schools with more than six teachers, and to school
supervisors to improve the quality of school programs.
The aim of the program was to encourage school
attendance and reduce child labour. The evaluationcompared the CONAFE dataset to the Oportunidades
surveys and compared the impact of both programson reducing child labour. The CONAFE program
did not have an impact on school attendance foryoung children aged 8 – 11 years, but the program did
increase school attendance for children aged 12 to 16years, and reduced child labour among this group.
Rosati, F C & Rossi, M 2007, The Impact of School
Quality on Child Labour and School Attendance: The
Case of CONAFE Compensatory Education Program,Understanding Children’s Work (UCW) Programme.
[accessed 15/04/2020].

Edmonds, E V & Shrestha, M 2013, ‘You Get What
You Pay For: Schooling Incentives and Child Labor’
Journal of Development Economics vol. 111, pp. 196-211.
[accessed 15/04/2020].

MINDEROO.ORG/WALK-FREE

Promising Practices What Works: Lessons in Cash
the UseTransferof Cash
Evaluations
Transfers