Briefly describe conditional cash transfer programs, using an example to illustrate your point.

What will be an ideal response?

Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs provide cash grants to the poor in exchange for recipients sending their children to school and to health clinics. These programs, pioneered in our case study of Brazil, are means tested and target the poorest households to gain the maximum impact. CCT programs in Latin America have reduced poverty by 4–8%, depending on the country, and have increased both school enrollment and use of health care services. They have helped reduce poverty and inequality without substantially increasing social spending because they have reoriented spending away from relatively well-off formal-sector employees to the poorer workers in the informal and agricultural sector. CCTs have spread to a number of Asian and African countries as well, though they have not been as extensive or effective as in Latin America.