TO CONDITION OR NOT TO CONDITION? 69
large role in a CCT program. To what extent African governments will step up to the supply-side task, either themselves or through contracting NGOs, is another open question. Another major consideration is that of capacity to administer the condi-
tionality. In the African context, Schubert and Slater (2006) point to limited administrative skills, low salaries, lack of guidance, lack of supervision, little experience with results-oriented management, a need for behavior change, and weak ministries, particularly in social welfare. They argue that transfer schemes should therefore be kept as uncomplicated as possible. These prob- lems will apply to unconditional transfers as well, but monitoring and en- forcing conditions do introduce significant additional burdens. In South Africa, Leatt and Budlender (2006) cite too few school inspectors and no database to verify attendance. These are serious concerns to confront if considering a CCT. Lack of current capacity does not mean that building capacity is impos- sible, however. Many much poorer countries (for example, Bangladesh and Nicaragua) monitor attendance (via teachers), and presumably this is a goal that South Africa should set apart from the question of CCTs. Whether teach- ers will report absences and deprive families of resources in the context of communities suffering extreme poverty and illness, with so many vulnerable children, is another question, which can be answered only empirically. Finally, an important dimension of capacity is that of the cost of condi-
tionality, for service delivery as well as for setting, monitoring, and enforcing conditions, which are data- and management-intensive processes. Any analy- sis of the benefits versus the costs of conditionality should bear in mind that neither the economic benefits nor the costs are easy to quantify (although the costs are easier to quantify than the benefits), much less the social ben- efits and costs. In the case of PROGRESA in Mexico, conditionality repre- sented approximately 18 percent of program costs, on average, between 1997 and 2000. In Honduras’s PRAF, conditionality costs averaged about 9 percent over three years, and in Nicaragua the cost averaged about 3 percent over two years (Caldés, Coady, and Maluccio 2006). Funds otherwise used to imple- ment conditionality could instead be used to distribute more benefits (Camp- bell et al. 2007), although this brings us back to the overall cost–benefit analysis.
Whether it is supply-side components or administrative capacity for deliv-
ery or monitoring conditions, each must be adapted to local circumstances. For many reasons—from selecting objectives that make sense to designing a feasible program—CCT programs should not be blueprints of each other but rather should be adapted to local circumstances so that they are relevant to the problem at hand and can work. Where families are affected by AIDS, incentives could be structured to meet appropriate priority objectives.
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