Innovative Features in Conditional Cash Transfers: The impact evaluation of Chile Solidario on households and children

Abstract

Social protection represents an important tool to mitigate poverty and to promote adequate living standards and conditions. In Latin America social protection has largely taken the form of large scale implementation of conditional cash transfers (CCTs). These transfers have proven successful in combating poverty and inequality across the continent, while facilitating empowerment by increasing access to services and supporting investment in education, health and nutrition. Chile Solidario is an avant garde CCT in the Latin American context, introducing innovative features which are aimed at specifically addressing the multidimensional nature of poverty, considered not only as a consequence of the lack of income, but also as a result of low levels of human and social capital, and the vulnerability of a household to shocks.