Conditional Cash Transfers, Food Security, and Health: Biocultural Insights for Poverty-Alleviation Policy from the Brazilian Amazon

Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs have become an increasingly popular component of poverty-alleviation policies worldwide. The highly publicized success of Brazil’s Bolsa Família program (BFP), the largest such program in the world, has become a model for CCT programs elsewhere, including in...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Current anthropology 2016-12, Vol.57 (6), p.806-826
Main Authors: Piperata, Barbara Ann, McSweeney, Kendra, Murrieta, Rui Sergio, Adams, Cristina, Brondizio, Eduardo S., Chernela, Janet, Hicks, Kathryn A., Morsello, Carla, Wutich, Amber, Brewis, Alexandra
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Africa
Antipoverty programs
CA☆ FORUM ON PUBLIC ANTHROPOLOGY
Children
Children & youth
Food security
Food supply
Health care policy
Households
Infrastructure
Low income groups
Nutrition
Poverty
Public health
Rural areas
Rural communities
Rural poverty
Sanitation
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Summary:Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs have become an increasingly popular component of poverty-alleviation policies worldwide. The highly publicized success of Brazil’s Bolsa Família program (BFP), the largest such program in the world, has become a model for CCT programs elsewhere, including in highly rural African nations. This is despite the dearth of information on the impact of the program in rural contexts. Drawing on a unique natural experiment and using detailed anthropometric and dietary data collected in rural Amazonian subsistence-based communities, we analyze the impact of this critical policy on programmatic goals among the rural poor. Our data demonstrate the urgent need for more fine-grained biocultural research on this and similar policies. We show that despite close adherence to programmatic conditionalities, recipient households’ food security was measurably worse off and children’s poor nutritional status was virtually unchanged 4 years into the program. Using detailed ethnographic insights, we discuss the mechanisms that may explain these disappointing results in this rural zone and raise broader questions about the role of CCT programs for breaking the cycle of poverty in subsistence-based communities worldwide, especially without concomitant investment in public health and sanitation infrastructure.
ISSN:0011-3204
1537-5382
DOI:10.1086/688912