Global Conference on Conditional Cash Transfers (CCT)
Sponsored by the World Bank and the Government of Turkey
Istanbul, Turkey
June 26-30, 2006
Opening Remarks by Andrew Vorkink
Country Director, Turkey Dear Mr. Prime Minister, Distinguished Ministers, Distinguished Participants, National Officials, Ladies and Gentlemen: On behalf of the World Bank, and Shigeo Katsu, Regional Vice President for Europe and Central Asia, it gives me great pleasure to welcome you to this important gathering in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, a global city, which is both a bridge across continents and across civilizations and thus a very appropriate place for a global conference. As the World Bank’s Director for Turkey, I am especially pleased that this forum is the product of collaboration between the Government of Turkey, and specifically the Directorate General for Social Assistance and Solidarity, and the World Bank, with the important involvement of others. Before I go any further, I want to thank the Government for hosting this event in superb fashion and in true Turkish hospitality style. This is the third global conference on CCTs. The first in Puebla, Mexico in 2002 had about 50 participants, from 8 countries, including Turkey, but with most of the rest from Latin America. The second in Sao Paulo, Brazil in 2004 had about 120 participants, from about 20 countries, also including Turkey, but with most of the rest from Latin America. This conference has over 350 participants from over 40 countries, and is truly global. We will even be joined this week not only by developing countries but by the developed world, such as officials in New York City, who are also interested in CCT programs. This is world-wide testimony of the growing importance and attention to poverty issues and to the need to deliver targeted and effective social assistance to the poorest of the poor. One might ask why is this interest in targeted social assistance programs, and especially in Conditional Cash Transfers, increasing so much. While we will spend the next few days discussing this in more detail, I would like to offer five basic reasons. First, CCT programs have the potential to target and reach the poorest of the poor in a very supportive and behavior changing manner. Second, cash payments made under the proper framework can raise nutrition levels among family members within the poor. Third, CCT’s have been shown to increase enrollment rates of school age children, particularly girls. Fourth, CCT programs can point to overall health improvements among beneficiaries. And lastly, when CCT programs are paid to mothers, the status of women within the family and community goes up. Of course, this is not to say that CCT programs are the solution to all social assistance needs in a country. Far from it, CCT programs need to be viewed in a wider content of being but one weapon in the global fight against poverty and one element in a country’s social assistance network. Moreover, CCT’s need strong and well functioning administrative structures to be effective and avoid waste and possible politicalization in the selection of beneficiaries.  If I may turn now to say a few words about our host country. Turkey has been implementing a CCT program, supported by a World Bank loan under the Social Risk Mitigation Project for about four years. Initially a response to help protect the poor from the impact of the economic crisis in 2001, which hit the poor of the poorest, this program has gone on to become a key element of the poverty reduction strategy in Turkey, and an important element in both the social safety-net and as a key input into the health and education policies in Turkey.  Currently, there are over 2.6 million beneficiaries in the CCT program throughout Turkey (as against the initially estimated 1.3 million beneficiaries), being the poorest 8% or so of children in Turkey. This represents a huge success over the last three years. Moreover, the cash benefits go to the mothers of these poor children. This feature has very important side benefits in empowering women and giving them self-confidence to participate more fully in society. You will hear more about the successes and struggles of this program in Turkey later, but right now I would like to emphasize a few important lessons:
• Turkey brought this program to fruition from a standing start – meaning it did not exist before, software programs had to be developed, staff trained, public information activities undertaken, and a whole system built -up;
• Turkey, however, enjoyed the advantage of having an organization, the Directorate General for Social Assistance and Solidarity as it is now known, with a central headquarters in Ankara and 931 local social assistance foundations across the entirety of Turkey, capable of implementing such a program and reaching out to the poor;
• These local foundations are chaired by the district or provincial governors who are able to integrate the various elements of the central government at the local level. I would like to give a special vote of thanks to all the district governors (kaymakamlar) and the provincial governors (valiler), and their staff in the local social solidarity foundations, who have been so effective and essential in making this program a great success. Turkey is blessed with a highly professional and dedicated corps of officials and staff at the provincial and sub-provincial level, without whom these social assistance programs could not have worked.
• The results of the CCT program in Turkey will be presented shortly, but quite apart from the impact on education and health outcomes (which are at the core of the CCT), I would like to emphasize two other key impacts, namely on poverty and secondly on women. It is important not to underestimate the contribution of the cash transfers under CCTs to reducing poverty. While absolute poverty in Turkey is very low – about 1 %, citizens below the poverty line consist of about one-quarter of the population. Recently, the World Bank held a planning workshop in the province of Gaziantep in south-eastern Turkey. Some participants went to the small town of Yavuzeli in that province to meet CCT beneficiaries, and encountered for example, one mother with a disabled husband and five children, where the only source of cash income was the CCT benefits. On top of this, in order to receive the benefits, children’s births must be registered and indeed the marriages registered. Although this might not sound like a significant event, it is this process of registration which confers real rights to children as citizens of the nation and to women as co-equals with men in society.
• The implementation of the CCT in Turkey has also helped not only to improve the targeting of social assistance to the poorest, which is absolutely essential in the economic environment in which Turkey finds itself, but was also introduced a new culture of monitoring and evaluation – that is from the beginning assessing the impact and effectiveness of public expenditures in social assistance. Moreover, the CCT in Turkey emphasizes the need to break the cycle of poverty transmitted from one generation to another – this reinforces the message that social assistance should act as a trampoline rather than a social safety-net. Wherever possible, social assistance should help families to become independent, develop sustainable livelihoods and not become trapped or entangled in a social safety-net, but rather given the means and thus the bounce from the trampoline to do so. Here the linkages between CCTs and the employment generation agenda are critically important. With all these positive aspects apart, I do not want to give the impression that CCTs are a panacea in Turkey, or indeed elsewhere. To be effective in positive behavioral change, just as in the case of macroeconomic policy, programs need to be tailored to local conditions and be consistent and sustained – albeit with fine-tuning to ensure that they respond to the feedback from continuous monitoring and evaluation. It is in this context that the World Bank wishes to express its continuing support to the Turkish government in sustaining its CCT program, and our willingness to do this technically and financially in the future. Clearly such programs can not, and should not, be financed from loan funds over the long-term, but over the short to medium-term, lending can help both to supplement resources for such programs and to assist in the very necessary institutional strengthening and learning to make them a success and self-sustaining.  Beyond this, there are the very essential requirements to make sure that the demand for social services developed for the poor under CCTs are supported by effective and efficient public services, particularly in the spheres of social security, education and health. The World Bank is particularly happy that the Turkish government is undertaking bold reforms in all these areas: (i) within social security, to make the system fiscally affordable and to extend the system (particularly for health insurance) to the uncovered; (ii) within education, to modernize the curriculum and enhance efficiency so that school and university graduates may enter a globally-competitive labor market more effectively; and (iii) within health to transform a costly system to serve the real needs of the population effectively. In achieving all these important endeavors, we believe Turkey has an important success story to tell the world, especially as it deals simultaneously with a globalizing world and the European Union accession process. And we also believe Turkey can learn from other countries represented here today at this forum who have lessons to share from their own experiences with CCT and social assistance programs.  In conclusion, I want to wish you all the best for a vital exchange of views at this important conference to discuss CCTs globally. Your mission, our mission, is the most noble one in the world today – how to better help the poor and raise living standards for all. CCT programs have an important part to play in making this mission succeed, whether in Turkey, Asia, Africa or Latin America. I hope this conference makes a significant contribution to this worthy goal. Thank you.  |
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