Cash Transfers and the Millennium Development Goals

This is a quick synopsis on "cash transfers" related to child health:


Accumulating evidence from large-scale programmes
is starting to show positive eff ects of cash transfer
programmes on many levels. A new report by Save the
Children, Lasting Benefi ts, highlights the importance
of regular cash transfers, such as child benefi ts or
pensions, as one crucial intervention to get Millennium
Development Goal 4—reduction of mortality in children
younger than 5 years by two-thirds—back on track.
Currently, child mortality levels are either not
decreasing or actually increasing in 27 countries. And
even in those countries that are making progress, the
poorest are left behind. National fi gures hide great
inequalities. The report argues that three complementary
approaches need to be taken to have the greatest eff ect:
strengthening and improving health care; access to
clean water and sanitation; and poverty reduction.
Child health is inextricably linked to the environment
in which children grow up. Children in poor households
are more likely to die, more likely to have irreversible
eff ects from poor nutrition, more likely to have poor or
no education, and less likely to benefi t from even a well
functioning health-care system than children from welloff
families. User fees, drug and transport costs, and loss
of parental income are often insurmountable barriers to
seek treatment or use preventive measures.
Emerging data from cash transfer programmes,
conditional or unconditional, largely dispel the counter
arguments that these programmes prevent adults from
seeking work or create a dependency culture which
perpetuates intergenerational poverty. On the contrary,
children—especially girls —from households given cash
transfers are more likely to be in education, are in school
for longer, and have higher incomes as adults. Immediate
eff ects on local trade are also positive in most cases.
Summarising the current evidence and modelling
aff ordability, the report makes a very strong case to
include child and maternal cash transfers, especially
for young children, into the package of interventions
to reduce neonatal and child mortality. Even more
compelling is the argument that the eff ect of lifting
households with young children out of poverty will last
for many generations to come. ■ The Lancet