El programa Asignación Universal por Hijo para Protección Social y los cambios en los Programas de Transferencias Condicionadas

The recent implementation of the social program "Universal Child Allocation for Social Protection” is an important step towards alleviating the children and adolescents vulnerability situation and a way to improve their household income. At the same time it set a new paradigm in the Conditional Transfer Programs (PTC) for several reasons. First, by recognizing that employment no longer guarantees social security benefits, and therefore it is necessary to reduce inequality and inequity suffered by children and adolescents whose parents do not have formal employment via other mechanisms. Second, because it seeks to reach 5 million beneficiaries, an ambitious challenge considering that the “Heads of Household Plan” reached 2 million people. Moreover, the program is open to enrollment of new beneficiaries, unlike the previous PTC, and the benefit takes into account family composition and amount depends on the number of children. As we know the largest families are found in more vulnerability. Thirdly, with regard to the budgetary significance, given the size of the program, again implies a greater involvement of PTC in the national budget, similar to what had happened to the “Unemployed Heads of Household Plan”, which from 2006 had lost prominence for the economic and energy subsidies in the composition of public expenditure. On the other hand, it is important to mention the challenges of this new program. First, to include beneficiaries who were out of reach, as is the case of informal workers children who earn above the minimum wage. Secondly, with regard to conditionalities, this program, like the previous PTC (Unemployed Heads of Household Plan and Families), continues to demand the fulfillment of conditions from the side of beneficiaries without raising an increase and improvement of supply services in education and public health for a genuine integral development for families in situations of greater vulnerability. Finally, the main challenge will be to reach all those children who do not receive social protection and achieve a true equal rights and reduction of social inequalities.