Conditional versus unconditional cash: a commentary

To condition or not to condition; that is a question that preoccupies social protection experts and policy-makers alike, and one that divides rights-based camps from the incentives-based ones. This commentary argues that this debate may be a red herring. The line between conditional and unconditional (or social) cash transfer programmes is blurred at best. Both conditions and the ‘no-strings-attached’ version need to be communicated and perceived as such by programme implementers and beneficiaries for the programme to be interpreted as being one or the other. A key distinction found between the cash transfer programmes in Latin America, mostly conditioned, and those in Africa, mostly unconditioned, is the incorporation in the latter of a substantial role for the community in the overall selection of the beneficiaries. The commentary argues that an interesting area for further research would be to look at how this community participation leads to explicit or implicit peer monitoring, and thereby acts in a similar way as a condition does.