The BOTA foundation

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Masrur Kasymov, ID 201632030

Assignment #6

#1 Conditional cash transfer program in Kazakhstan

The BOTA foundation

The BOTA Foundation was founded in 2008 by the Governments of Kazakhstan, U.S., and Switzerland, and five Kazakhstanis, as a means of returning more than $115 million in disputed assets in support of poor children, youth, and their families in Kazakhstan.

The BOTA Foundation was the largest child and youth welfare foundation in Kazakhstan during the time of its operation from 2009 to 2014 and was able to improve the health and poverty status of over 208,000 poor Kazakhstani children and youth through its three programs: conditional cash transfers, scholarships to attend Kazakhstani higher education institutions, and grants to support innovative social service provision.

The Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program was designed to address a key need associated with ameliorating poverty: increasing the access of poor families to health, education, and social services. BOTA CCT program was a demand-side program that aimed at removing monetary and non-monetary barriers to accessing existing services. The program delivered regular cash payments to four categories of beneficiaries within poor households: those with preschool aged children, women with infants up to the age of six months, and households who have children with disabilities up to the age of 16. The fourth category of target beneficiary, introduced in mid-2011, was young people aged 16-19 who have completed school and had not yet found employment. By the end of its operations in September 2014, CCT had enrolled 154,241 beneficiaries from 95,000 poor households in the six regions where it operated. CCT exceeded its original target of 50,000 beneficiaries by more than three times.

The goal of the Social Service Program (SSP) was to improve the health, education, and social welfare of impoverished children, youth, and families by supporting improvements in quality, availability and sustainability of non-government or non-commercial child welfare services and systems. SSP took a holistic approach to achieving these goals and objectives. A multi-tier grants structure was offered that allowed for organizations with little or no experience to receive small grants (up to $2,000) for planning and community mobilization, and very experienced NGOs to receive large grants (up to $50,000) for replicating successful projects, training other NGOs, or working towards improving Kazakhstan's framework for social assistance. Close to three quarters of the grants were given to small and medium 2 size organizations for the provision of social services. Between 2009 and 2014, SSP conducted eight grants rounds and funded 632 projects. money key children transfer

BOTA's Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) provided means-based scholarships for young people from impoverished backgrounds who normally would not have the opportunity to attend college or university due to the high costs relative to applicants' income. TAP allowed students to attend any college or university in Kazakhstan that accepted them and pursue any area of study. The main goal of the TAP program was to break the cycle of poverty for tuition assistance recipients by providing students with higher education, which in turn, would lead to gainful employment. TAP had four open competitions from 2009 to 2012. Over that time, a total of 841 educational grants were awarded. The original goal for the program was to distribute 400 scholarships, and similar to BOTA's other programs, the BOTA reached more than double its beneficiary target.

Oxford Policy Management (OPM) evaluated the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program of BOTA Foundation. The evaluation found that BOTA's CCT brought about a significant increase in the rate of pre-school enrolment, a slight shift in child-care arrangements, and no discernible effect on household consumption, the receipt of state transfers or informal support.

BOTA significantly increased the proportion of pre-school-age children in poor households who had ever attended preschool: in 2012 this figure stood at 84 percent in CCT areas compared with 70 percent in control areas.

The CCT did not alter the fact that the main carer of pre-school-age children is almost always female. However, carers' average age decreased slightly in CCT areas, suggesting that CCT beneficiaries relied less on older relatives, such as grandmothers, to look after their young children.

The evaluation was unable to detect a significant increase in consumption among beneficiary households, perhaps because the transfer was too small in comparison with overall consumption to be discernible. Mean monthly consumption among eligible households was KZT94,000 (USD625), so the extra USD24 added less than 4 per cent to the total.

Poverty in Kazakhstan is not strongly associated with food insecurity. Only 7 per cent of households were classified as food-insecure; this was unaffected by the CCT. Children ate a diverse diet, and the transfer had no impact on the frequency or diversity of children's meals. The proportion of consumption expenditure used for food was quite high in both treatment and control areas, at around 57 per cent, again unchanged by the CCT.

Many families in Kazakhstan receive state benefits such as a pension or child benefit. The CCT neither made families ineligible for these allowances nor encouraged them to apply for new ones. Nor did it change the support received from friends and relatives; in any case, unlike other countries in the region, Kazakhstan does not have a strong culture of informal transfers. The short-term nature of the CCT, and its size compared with mean consumption, meant that it was not an instrument for poverty reduction. In light of this it is remarkable that, looking at its effect on those for whom it was directly intended--pre-school-age children and their carers--it produced several significant changes in behavior, including on the demand for pre-school education and the shift in economic activity undertaken by some working carers.

Literature

1. http://microdata.worldbank.org/index.php/catalog/2218

2. http://www.opml.co.uk/projects/external-evaluation-bota-foundations-social-sector-programmes-kazakhstan

3. http://www.ipcundp.org/pub/eng/OP314_The_impact_of_the_BOTA_foundation_s_conditional_cash_transfer_programme_for_pre_school_children_in_kazakhstan

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