Effectiveness of 4p's in Terms of Mch and Education

Introduction Conditional cash transfers (CCTs) are among the most popular social protection schemes today. Promoted by multilateral institutions, notably the World Bank, CCTs have been adopted in at least 30 countries as of 2008, with further ones expected to follow suit in the coming years (WB‘s CCT Webpage). The map below shows these country-adopters. CCTs are grounded on the principle that human capital accumulation is a development vehicle which can be achieved by providing money to poor households, often to women, on conditions that they ensure children‘s regular attendance in school, accompany them to health clinics, and participate in classes and workshops on topics related to health, nutrition, and sanitation (St. Claire 2009: 177; Bradshaw 2008: 188; Hall 2006: 691). Citing the experiences of Latin American countries, particularly Mexico and Brazil, advocates have repeatedly claimed that CCTs are an effective and efficient means of reducing poverty and hunger, keeping children in school, enhancing the use of preventive healthcare, empowering women, and increasing the freedom of poor households to invest in their varied needs (WB‘s CCT Webpage; ECLAC 2004). No wonder, with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) deadline getting near, CCTs have been in vogue in a number of countries, including that archipelagic country in the east—the Philippines.
In view of the worsening poverty situation and the MDG targets, the Philippine government ran a pilot CCT project in 2007, targeting 6,000 poor households in two provinces and two cities. It proceeded to implementing a full-scale program in 2008, calling it Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) and targeting 320,000 additional households. When Benigno Aquino III was elected president in 2010, he decided to sustain his predecessor‘s 4Ps, and further expand its coverage so that when he bows out of the presidency in 2016, it will have reached a total of 4.3 million households (PCIJ 2011). Quoting the