Jobs, not cash grant will help people rise from poverty - study

MANILA, Philippines - Beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) believe that access to a regular job rather than conditional cash assistance would help them rise from poverty, a recent study by Social Watch Philippines (SWP) showed.

“The 4Ps respondents said that while the cash grant was useful, what would lift them out of poverty was access to regular work,” Marivic Raquiza, co-convenor of SWP said, citing a self-perception study conducted from 2009 to 2010.

The study involved 160 respondents equally distributed in the rural area of Sibagat, Agusan del Sur, and in the urban area of Riverside Tramo, Pasay City.

She said the study was supported by the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). It also involved interviews with officials of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), Department of Health (DOH), Department of Education (DepEd) and World Bank (WB).

In another study conducted by Raquiza, she found that by simply linking 4Ps beneficiaries to the DSWD’s livelihood assistance programs Kapit Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan-Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services (Kalahi-CIDSS) and Self-employment Assistance-Kaunlaran (Sea-K) programs, “is problematic.”

“The highly ‘micro-ized and project-ized’ nature of Kalahi-CIDSS, examples of which are construction of road opening, day care centers, water system and class rooms, has generated, at best, localized impact on poverty reduction such as the opening of a road has made it easier for farmers to bring their produce to the market,” she said.

“But it has not made a dent on reducing over-all poverty. In one case study, the data showed that poverty incidence even rose in a municipality where a Kalahi-CIDSS project was implemented. Research has shown that SEA-K activities revolve around mostly low-value trade and commercial activities,” Raquiza said.

The conditional cast transfer (CCT) or 4Ps provides monthly cash grants amounting P1,400 to poor eligible households on the condition that lactating or pregnant mothers and young children avail of preventive health care and that school-aged children regularly attend school.

The program is now on its mid-level target of reaching the 4.6 million poor households identified by the National Statistical and Coordination Board (NSCB) by the end of 2013, according to the DSWD.

The SWP study also stressed that education does not guarantee access to the jobs market, citing that 4.6 million are unemployed, nine-tenths of which are reasonably educated, 44 percent are high school graduates or undergraduates, and 43 percent are college graduates or undergraduates.

“The need for job creation and to improve existing work acquires greater resonance in the context of both complementation and exit strategies of the 4Ps,” said Raquiza.

She said health and education performance outcomes of the CCT are limited and inconclusive.

“The experience of the most established CCT programs – those in Mexico and Brazil – show that educational achievements of student-beneficiaries were dismaying as they scored either the same or worse compared to non-beneficiary students. This was also true of an evaluation of CCT in Cambodia where higher enrollment rates of CCT beneficiaries were not accompanied by improved learning outcomes,” she said.

According to her, the evidence is that learning and health outcomes either stay the same, or may even worsen, as increased demand puts additional pressure on education and health infrastructure that are of poor quality to begin with, and from inadequate personnel.

Raquiza said the UN Research Institute for Social Development argues that in many developing country contexts, improvements in education and health indicators might be better achieved by investing directly in the supply of these services.

The SWP urged the government to put employment at the center of its development strategy.

Established in 1997, the SWP is an advocacy group with over 100 civil society groups and individual members that aims to increase people’s awareness and participation in promoting social development concerns with government.

Last week, Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman said the 4Ps program significantly improved the health, nutrition and education of children of low-income families, citing studies conducted by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) and Ateneo de Manila University.