It takes two to tango: conditional cash transfers, social policy and the globalising role of the world bank

The marked expansion of conditional cash transfer (CCT) programmes across the developing world since 2000 has been underpinned in large measure by financial and technical assistance from the World Bank largely in response to the financial crisis. Yet CCTs have proved popular with both donors such as the Bank and client governments alike. Cash transfers have shown that they can be effective in reducing income poverty and enforcing conditionalities in education and health to strengthen human capital. This is consistent with the Bank’s ideological preference for the targeted provision of social protection for vulnerable groups. Cash transfer programmes also allow funds to be rapidly disbursed, and for the Bank to dispense knowledge and training through extensive analytical and advisory activities. For client governments CCTs are electorally attractive while offering other financial and political advantages. Mutually reinforcing interests in the provision of CCTs are thus helping to catalyse a process of globalisation that, for the moment at least, prioritises short-­term, piecemeal solutions rather than a more universal, comprehensive and longer-­term vision of social policy provision.