Building Short-Term Coping Capacity and Longer-Term Resilience
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Baseline data collected before the start of the program showed that early cognitive and social development was severely delayed among children aged 0–7 years, in very poor households. For example 97 percent of those aged 3–7 years were in the lowest quartile with respect to language development, and 85 percent were in the lowest decile, implying that they were at least 21 months delayed in their receptive vocabulary. Large delays were also found in the children’s short-term memory and in their social development. Generally, the older children were the most delayed. In surveys undertaken nine months after the program was initiated, large improvements were found. School attendance rates for children aged 6–15 years were up. Nutrition and preventive health care were greatly improved both in quality and quantity, and significant improvements appeared in cognitive development outcomes of children aged 0–7 years, particularly in language and social-personal skills. While improvements were found among the beneficiaries of all three packages, compared to the control group, which saw no improvements, the most pronounced effects were found in the group that had received the nutrition and education package together with productive investment grants. In basic terms, all participant groups had their income protected against natural disasters (such as drought, mudslides, and hurricanes), while communities not in the program and hence not receiving any conditional cash transfer would experience loss of income. This effect was even more pronounced for consumption. The households in the group that had received productive investment grants were best able to increase their income and hence increase their savings, enabling them to cope better with natural disasters. In other words, they were able to strengthen their ex-ante risk management strategies. They were also less likely to migrate than other groups, more likely to diversify their income sources away from agriculture, and more likely to invest in improved technology. A very interesting and positive effect was that people who received the productive grant started planning for the future, whereas previously they had lived a day-to-day existence. In the words of one respondent, Some people just dedicate themselves to survival. Others dedicate themselves to moving forward. It’s the way of thinking. There are people that don’t think about tomorrow. They hope that God will intervene, and that it will fall from the sky . . . But there are people who changed. Before, they didn’t think about tomorrow, but now [with the program] they dedicate themselves to moving up.