Oportunidades

Oportunidades (English: Opportunities) is a government social assistance program in Mexico founded in 2002, based on a previous program called Progresa, created in 1997.^[1] It is designed to target poverty by providing cash payments to families in exchange for regular school attendance, health clinic visits, and nutritional support.^[2] Oportunidades is credited with decreasing poverty and improving health and educational attainment in regions in which it has been deployed.^[3] As of 2006, around one-quarter of Mexico's population participates in Oportunidades.

Key features of Oportunidades include:

• Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) - To encourage co-responsibility, receipt of aid is dependent on family compliance with program requirements, such as ensuring children attend school and family members receive preventative health care^[4]
• "Rights holders" - Program recipients are mothers, the caregiver directly responsible for children and family health decisions^[5]
• Cash payments are made from the government directly to families to decrease overhead and corruption^[1]
• A system of evaluation and statistical controls to ensure effectiveness^[2]
• Rigorous selection of recipients based on geographical and socioeconomic factors
• Program requirements target measures considered most likely to lift families out of poverty, focusing on health, nutrition and children's education^[1]

Oportunidades has become a model for programs instituted in other countries, such as a pilot program in New York City, the Opportunity NYC ^[1] and the Social Protection Network in Nicaragua. Other countries that have instituted similar conditional cash transfer programs include Brazil, Peru, Honduras, Jamaica, Chile, Malawi and Zambia.^[4]

The Political Organization of Progresa-Oportunidades

Progresa-Oportunidades is designed to be a centrally run program that relies on a horizontal integration of programs and services among the various agencies and ministries within the executive branch. This required the establishment of a body with enough power to coordinate the participants in the program and monitor the budget.^[6] Instead of restructuring an old agency, it was decided to form a new agency with all of the appropriate powers and the backing from the president.

Although this provided for an easier and faster startup, it also meant that many of the related agency structures, which Progresa-Oportunidades would have to rely upon for its future sustainability, were incompatible with the new program. Officials in related structures such as the Ministry of Health and Education were not provided with the appropriate incentives to channel their work towards Progresa-Oportunidades. Many were individuals who had worked on earlier poverty programs and who now saw their resources shifting in a new direction. Also, officials often had more to gain politically from abandoning this program and starting a new one.^[6]

As a centrally administered program, Oportunidades allows for low operational costs and a greater level of efficiency in the transmission of benefits directly to the participants in the program. The program has sometimes been criticized for this completely “top down” approach. However, the lack of community participation in the identification of beneficiaries and the allocation of funding also helps to limit the opportunities for corruption at the local level, which has traditionally been a problem with such government-funded programs.^[6]

Information Strategies

To effectively disseminate information about the program, Progresa-Oportunidades pursued a “three-pronged” information strategy. First, an extensive amount of information was made generally available through the Internet. Secondly, information also provided to Congress and other government officials at all levels in the form of detailed budget proposals, program evaluations, and other relevant documents. Finally, public relations campaigns were initially minimal to avoid raised public expectations. However, since 2006, the public profile of the program has been raised, particularly through extensive radio and television advertisements.^[6]

Transparency and Accountability in Progresa-Oportunidades

Traditionally, most anti-poverty programs in Mexico have relied upon presidential support to establish their funding and public profile. Although Oportunidades originally was no different in its dependence upon Zedillo to support its startup costs, much effort has since been made to establish an image of Progresa-Oportunidades as existing independently of the president and party politics, to heighten chances it would survive transfers of power in the executive branch. Several congressional provisions have helped to ensure this identity. Among these are several provisions that prevent the program being used for political proselytizing. Also, in 2000 and 2003, program officials were prohibited from signing up new beneficiaries within six months of national elections in order to prevent vote buying from taking place. In addition, budget provisions have been enacted that attempt to directly communicate with program beneficiaries to educate them about rights and responsibilities regarding the program.^[6]

Progresa-Oportunidades under Political Transitions

The transition between the Zedillo and Fox administrations was a crucial test of the long-term sustainability of Progresa-Oportunidades. President Fox’s administration achieved early public recognition for its commitment to anti-poverty strategies as well as its willingness to continue with earlier initiatives that had already proved to be successful. Also, Fox ultimately decided to continue with the program because the independent image of the program meant that it had not become identified with the old ruling party (the PRI) or with former President Zedillo in the eyes of the public. In addition, Fox had received confirmation of the program’s benefits both from the program’s own impact evaluations and outside international financial institutions who all held the program in high esteem and hoped to see it continue.^[6]

Effectiveness of Oportunidades

The anti-poverty program has become a flagship success. Thirty percent of the population directly receive conditional cash transfers from the program. Effects have been both positive and numerous. Increased contraceptive use in rural areas of Mexico has resulted in reduced teen pregnancy and fewer infant deaths. Students are progressing with school for more years and with high grades. The number of graduating high school students has increased 85%. More students are going to college. ^[7]

See also

• Bolsa Família

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d} Paying for Better Parenting - New York Times Accessed 12/07/06
2. ^ ^{a b} Mexico's Oportunidades Program Accessed 12/07/06
3. ^ Bulletin of the World Health Organization - Reaching Mexico's poorest Accessed 12/07/06
4. ^ ^{a b} Lessons offered by Latin American cash transfer programmes, Mexico’s Oportunidades and Nicaragua's SPN. Implications for African countries Accessed 12/07/06
5. ^ SEDESOL - Oportunidades Accessed 12/07/06
6. ^ ^{a b c d e f} Levy, S. (2006): Progress Against Poverty: Sustaining Mexico's Progresa-Oportunidades Program, Washington, D.C., Brookings Institution Press.
7. ^ "Oportunidades" for Occupy Wall Street Accessed 10/28/11

Further reading

• Coady, D. and S. Parker (2002): A Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of Demand and Supply Side Education Interventions: the Case of Progresa in Mexico, FCND Discussion Paper, No. 127, Washington, D.C., International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
• Hoddinot, J. and E. Skoufias (2003): The Impact of Progresa on Food Consumption, FCND Discussion Paper, No. 150, Washington, D.C., International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

External links

• (Spanish) Official Oportunidades program homepage
• World Bank's case study summary of Oportunidades
• Report from PBS on the program