Does Brazil’s Bolsa Familia conditional cash transfer programme reduce children’s malnutrition and food insecurity? This study assesses the programme’s impact on the nutritional status of zero to five year olds. Data on 22,375 children’s height/age, weight/age and weight/height shows that the PBF does improve child nutrition. To ensure an increase in beneficiaries’ health levels, families need greater access to goods and services which interact with improved nutrition. The provision of more and better basic services and initiatives for inclusion in the labour market would ensure the PBF’s effectiveness.
The Bolsa Familia (PBF) programme seeks to change the behaviour of vulnerable families through grants conditional on greater use of health and education services. It aims to: i) combat hunger and promote food and nutrition security through a financial benefit (depending particularly the household’s number of children); ii) promote access to existing public services, especially health, education and social services, making eligibility conditional on service usage; and iii) promote complementarity among the government’s social actions.
The programme reached 11.2 million families in 2006, making it the largest conditional cash transfer programme in the world. In 2007, US$ 303 million was invested in it each month, totalling US$ 3.7 billion that year.
The indicators were measured on Brazil’s Health and Nutrition Days in 2005 and 2006, using the opportunity provided by vaccination campaigns. Children whose families received the PBF benefit were 26 per cent more likely to have an appropriate height/age than those from non-beneficiary families. The same applied to weight/age.
- The only other factor that showed a positive effect was birth weight. There were no significant findings concerning weight/height deficit.
- The priority given by families to purchasing food for children may be related both to conditionalities and to changes in family attitudes, evidenced by a decreasing birth rate. Families may be seeking to provide more food for fewer children.
- Conditionalities can operate as inducements for potential beneficiaries to make use of health, education and social services. However, the capacity of the PBF programme to serve as an inducement is limited by the country’s capability to meet the demand for social policies.
The PBF may have an immediate impact on the attainment of minimum social rights related to food, clothing, transport and consumption of other goods and services. But there is also a need to provide beneficiary families with greater access to goods and services which interact with improved nutrition to ensure increasing health levels.
