Sociologist Marcelo Medeiros on Conditional Cash Transfer Programs in Latin America

In this episode Marcelo Medeiros discusses conditional cash transfer programs addressing the role of conditionality on their political support and their positive effects on reducing poverty. He also elaborates on the limits of their technocratic design around 3 areas: First, he emphasizes how their fiscal conservatism made them shrink in the face of negative shocks that increased their need. Second, he points on the insufficiency of technocratic support and technical evaluations to avoid the dismantling of the largest regional conditional cash transfer programs by presidents Bolsonaro in Brazil and Lopez Obrador in Mexico. Finally, he discusses how the bureaucratic infrastructure created to target chronic poverty was inadequate to address the impact of shocks on a population that moved temporarily into poverty.