CCT Debt Trap -- Another Reason why Conditional Cash Transfer is Unsustainable!

CCT debt trap? Future of pro-poor deal a poser

Last of Three Parts

IT HAS been described as an “investment in the next generation,” with its supposed results of millions of healthier, better educated Filipinos not expected to be realized anytime soon. But the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program is also an investment that is drawing a substantial chunk of its capital from foreign loans, a fact that has many observers raising red flags.

“The poor of the future will be the ones who will carry the burden of paying off this debt,” says Freedom from Debt Coalition Executive Director Milo Tanchuling, who believes it would be better if the CCT relied on locally sourced funds. That the government is also vague about alternative funding prospects for the program has only made those like Tanchuling uneasy – and wondering if it’s an initiative that is sustainable.

Read the full article here: http://pcij.org/stories/cct-debt-trap-future-of-pro-poor-deal-a-poser/

Partido Kalikasan Commentary:

Partido Kalikasan (Phil Green Party) agrees with PCIJ in their analysis of the CCT (Conditional Cash Transfer).

We criticize the social equity strategies and goals of the government as remaining dependent on dole-out systems such as conditional cash transfers which will only be effective in the short-term but will be unsustainable in the long term.

The PCIJ report clearly shows that CCT draws substantial chunk of its financing from foreign loans. This only reiterates the unsustainable nature of this anti poverty strategy.

We do not see this changing soon as event the recently approved PDP (Phil Devt Plan 2011-2016) continue to have more of this short-term social safety nets and remain weak on the more fundamental asset reform requirements.

We do not need a debt-increasing, short-term anti poverty strategy. What we need is stronger political support to the completion of agrarian reform and making agrarian reform communities economically viable; long-term solution to the plight of informal settlers; municipal water delineation; building the institutional capacity of agencies tasked at upholding IP rights to their ancestral domain and the further strengthening of community-based forest management.