Civil Conflict and Conditional Cash Transfers : Effects on Demobilization

Cash transfer programs have been successful in helping millions of people afford better livelihoods. While this is well known, little research has yet been conducted to examine the power of such programs to influence outcomes in times of conflict, especially in countries where anti-poverty programs...

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Main Authors:	Pena, Paola, Urrego, Joaquin A., Villa, Juan M.
Format:	Journal Article
Published:	Elsevier 2018
Subjects:	CONDITIONAL CASH TRANSFERS POVERTY REDUCTION DEMOBILIZATION CIVIL CONFLICT EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29170

id	okr-10986-29170
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-291702021-05-26T09:05:19Z Civil Conflict and Conditional Cash Transfers : Effects on Demobilization Pena, Paola Urrego, Joaquin A. Villa, Juan M. CONDITIONAL CASH TRANSFERS POVERTY REDUCTION DEMOBILIZATION CIVIL CONFLICT EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT Cash transfer programs have been successful in helping millions of people afford better livelihoods. While this is well known, little research has yet been conducted to examine the power of such programs to influence outcomes in times of conflict, especially in countries where anti-poverty programs are implemented amidst disputes against illegal armed groups. This paper focuses on the implementation of Familias en Accion, a flagship anti-poverty cash transfer program in Colombia, during the early 2000s when the country was still experiencing its long-lasting internal conflict. Impact evaluations have already shown the important effects of this program on household poverty levels and children’s time allocation, including a higher incidence of school attendance and a lower incidence of child labor. Our hypothesis here is that such outcomes imply changes in the dynamics of the civil conflict, since 50% of the demobilised combatants are children mostly eligible for the transfers. We take advantage of a natural experiment that occurred during the first stage of implementation of the program in the period 2001–04 when the transfers were gradually rolled out across eligible municipalities. By setting out a difference-in-differences approach, our results indicate that the program had positive effects on the demobilization of combatants. These findings are observed for a length of three years since the program started. 2018-01-18T16:27:11Z 2018-01-18T16:27:11Z 2017-11 Journal Article World Development 0305-750X http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29170 CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo World Bank Elsevier Publications & Research :: Journal Article Publications & Research Latin America & Caribbean Colombia
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
topic	CONDITIONAL CASH TRANSFERS POVERTY REDUCTION DEMOBILIZATION CIVIL CONFLICT EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT
spellingShingle	CONDITIONAL CASH TRANSFERS POVERTY REDUCTION DEMOBILIZATION CIVIL CONFLICT EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT Pena, Paola Urrego, Joaquin A. Villa, Juan M. Civil Conflict and Conditional Cash Transfers : Effects on Demobilization
geographic_facet	Latin America & Caribbean Colombia
description	Cash transfer programs have been successful in helping millions of people afford better livelihoods. While this is well known, little research has yet been conducted to examine the power of such programs to influence outcomes in times of conflict, especially in countries where anti-poverty programs are implemented amidst disputes against illegal armed groups. This paper focuses on the implementation of Familias en Accion, a flagship anti-poverty cash transfer program in Colombia, during the early 2000s when the country was still experiencing its long-lasting internal conflict. Impact evaluations have already shown the important effects of this program on household poverty levels and children’s time allocation, including a higher incidence of school attendance and a lower incidence of child labor. Our hypothesis here is that such outcomes imply changes in the dynamics of the civil conflict, since 50% of the demobilised combatants are children mostly eligible for the transfers. We take advantage of a natural experiment that occurred during the first stage of implementation of the program in the period 2001–04 when the transfers were gradually rolled out across eligible municipalities. By setting out a difference-in-differences approach, our results indicate that the program had positive effects on the demobilization of combatants. These findings are observed for a length of three years since the program started.
format	Journal Article
author	Pena, Paola Urrego, Joaquin A. Villa, Juan M.
author_facet	Pena, Paola Urrego, Joaquin A. Villa, Juan M.
author_sort	Pena, Paola
title	Civil Conflict and Conditional Cash Transfers : Effects on Demobilization
title_short	Civil Conflict and Conditional Cash Transfers : Effects on Demobilization
title_full	Civil Conflict and Conditional Cash Transfers : Effects on Demobilization
title_fullStr	Civil Conflict and Conditional Cash Transfers : Effects on Demobilization
title_full_unstemmed	Civil Conflict and Conditional Cash Transfers : Effects on Demobilization
title_sort	civil conflict and conditional cash transfers : effects on demobilization
publisher	Elsevier
publishDate	2018
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29170
_version_	1764468680168570880

Civil Conflict and Conditional Cash Transfers : Effects on Demobilization

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