Programa Bolsa Família (PBF), which will be referred to as Bolsa Family Programme in this article is a conditional cash transfer program (CCT) focused on health and education that has been implemented by the federal government of Brazil since 2003. The Ministry for Social Development and to Combat Hunger (MDS) is responsible for the program, defines the eligibility criteria and authorizes payments to families. This is one of the programmes that a developed country adopts and learns from the experiences in the so-called developing world.
In this article, we will try to understand why this programme succeeded and what caused it, how it targets its beneficiaries and what beneficiaries have to say about it and lastly how India can adopt this scheme in accordance with Indian society.
History of this Programme:
In October 2003, the federal government under President Lula da Silva introduced the Programa Bolsa Família (PBF), a nationwide CCT programme managed by the relevant local administration within a federal infrastructure. It was created from the merger of four existing programmes: Bolsa Escola, Bolsa Alimentação, Cartão Alimentação, Auxílio-Gás, and - in 2006 - of the Child Labour Eradication Programme [Programa de e Erradicação do Trabalho Infantil] (PETI).
(Cited: https://www.centreforpublicimpact.org/case-study/bolsa-familia-in-brazil)
AIM :
Improve the efficiency and coherence of the social safety net and scale up assistance to provide universal coverage of Brazil's poor.
Objective:
Reduce poverty and inequality by providing a minimum level of income for extremely poor families.
Break the cycle of poverty by making the income transfers conditional. The conditional element is that families receive the cash only if they adhere to core responsibilities, such as taking their children to the doctor whenever the need arises and ensuring that they attend school. It aims to break the poverty cycle by obliging the recipients to invest in human capital.
Empower PBF beneficiaries by linking them to complementary services, such as employment training and social assistance programmes.
Impact:
Bolsa Família has also successfully reduced poverty, inequality and hunger. By 2015, the percentage of the population living below the international poverty line, according to the World Bank, had dropped from 13 percentage points to three (c. seven million people). It is estimated that “the level of extreme poverty would be between 33 per cent and 50 per cent higher without the PBF. The programme has also contributed to reducing income inequality, accounting for 12 to 21 per cent of the recent sharp decline”. The programme was responsible for approximately 28 per cent of the total poverty reduction in Brazil, and from 2002 to 2012 the number of Brazilians living on less than BRN70 a week fell from 8.8 per cent to 3.6 per cent. “According to a recent UN study, the number of people suffering from hunger decreased from 22.8 million people in 1992 to 13.6 million in 2012.”
Bolsa Família has been recognized globally as a model for CCT programmes. The PBF reaches 11.1 million families (over 46 million people) per year, making it the largest CCT programme in the world. It demonstrates a positive impact across the following dimensions: programme access and reaches, poverty, inequality and hunger reduction, as well as health and educational outcomes.
Structure:
The PBF is managed in a multilayered and decentralized fashion, being a federally funded and municipally implemented initiative. On the federal level, there exists a formal top layer of steering and infrastructure. Despite the varying resources of Brazil's local government bodies, this management system is generally robust because governance structures are kept simple (especially its means-testing), and technical support is provided efficiently through federal bodies.
The other layers of the PBF are as follows:
Municipalities provide a local programme point-of-contact, register beneficiaries in the Single Registry, and monitor conditionality. They also provide targeted complementary social assistance such as professional training.
The Caixa Econômica Federal manages the Single Registry and pays beneficiaries on their electronic cards.
The Ministries of Health and Education are responsible for establishing technical guidelines regarding school attendance and health conditionality.
State governments provide technical support and training to municipalities.
Three controls agencies - the General Controller's Office, the Federal Audits Court, and the Office of the Public Prosecutor - are responsible for formal oversight of the PBF.
Analysis of Result:
There are a few points that were taken into consideration for its result analysis:
Socio-demographic profiles of those receiving the payments
Levels of family and individual income and poverty
Children's enrolment education and measures of educational achievement
Health indicators, such as vaccine rates and height and weight relative to age.
Indian Schemes:
National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS):
In 2005, India introduced a national anti-poverty program, now called the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, which offered up to 100 days of unskilled manual labour per year on public works projects. An impact evaluation of the project, however, showed that the program didn’t function the way it was designed to and many people who needed work still didn’t have it, especially in the poorest states—where work was needed most.
The team further examined results from the state of Bihar, India’s poorest, to better understand why the program was unable to provide work as intended. The results helped local policymakers design a new program that improved the ability of local government to provide better and more effective social protection programs.
Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY)
The main objectives of PMMVY are mentioned below:
Giving partial cash incentives for women to help them cover their wage loss so that they can receive enough rest before and after the birth of their first child.
The health-seeking behaviour of PW & LM can be improved by the compensation that is provided to them.
Mentioned below are the benefits of the PMMVY scheme:
Cash benefits that are provided under the scheme are provided in three instalments of Rs.1,000, Rs.2,000, and Rs.2,000, respectively. However, for each instalment, the conditions that are required to be met are different and the documents that must be submitted may vary.
Candidates that are eligible for the scheme will receive incentives that are provided under the Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY). Maternity benefits are provided for individuals under the JSY, therefore, on average, a woman gets benefits of Rs.6,000.
Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojna (PMUY)
Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) aims to safeguard the health of women & children by providing them with a clean cooking fuel – LPG so that they don’t have to compromise their health in smoky kitchens or wander in unsafe areas collecting firewood. Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana was launched by Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi on May 1st, 2016 in Ballia, Uttar Pradesh. Under this scheme, 5 Cr LPG connections will be provided to BPL families with a support of Rs.1600 per connection in the next 3 years. Ensuring women’s empowerment, especially in rural India, the connections will be issued in the name of women of the households. Rs. 8000 Cr. has been allocated towards the implementation of the scheme. Identification of the BPL families will be done through Socio-Economic Caste Census Data.
What we can understand from these are that the Indian Government initiated some of the schemes that were introduced to alleviate poverty in the country, but several factors affecting it.
Wrong Data
Lack of Infrastructure
Lack of collaboration between different levels of government (Central, State, Local)
Illiteracy
Bureaucracy (Red Tape)
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