The encyclopedia · Strategy & Leadership · Strategic decision · 2003-2010
Brazil's Bolsa Familia scaled cash transfers by targeting the poorest
Bolsa Familia merged four transfer programs into one targeted payment; it reached 44 million people and lifted over 20 million out of poverty.
Brazil's Ministry of Social Development · Caixa Economica Federal
the move
Brazil ran four disconnected cash-transfer programs, each with its own rules, registry and bureaucracy, so the same family could be missed or doubled up.
In 2003 the new government merged them into Bolsa Familia under one ministry, using a single poverty registry to target the poorest and a single card to pay them.
Transfers went preferentially to women and were conditional on children's school attendance and health-care visits, linking relief to human-capital investment.
The model scaled: by January 2005 it covered about 26.4 million people and by the end of 2006 about 44 million, at least two-thirds of them extremely poor.
why it works
- A single registry let the state identify and reach the poorest families, not the best-connected ones.
- One payment card removed the delivery cost and error of four separate bureaucracies.
- Paying the mother encouraged the money to be spent on the family's children.
- Conditionality on school and health turned a relief payment into an investment in future income.
what transfers
When several agencies pay a similar group, one integrated card and one registry cut waste and let a payment be scaled to the whole country.
what came after
The World Bank reported the program helped lift about 20 million people out of poverty between 2003 and 2009 and cut income inequality; it became a template for cash-transfer programs across the developing world.
references
- Brazil: Bolsa Familia Program - Scaling-up Cash Transfers for the Poor
- Brazil: Second Bolsa Familia Project
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