Financial Incentives to Reduce Female Infanticide, Child Marriage and Promote Girls' Education: Institutional and Monitoring Mechanisms

The focus of this paper is on the complementary mechanisms and interventions likely to increase the effectiveness and impact of conditional cash transfer (CCT) schemes in South Asia that aim to reduce female infanticide and child marriage and promote girls’ education. The literature on the institutional aspects of these particular schemes is limited, but from this and from the wider literature on CCT programmes in similar contexts, the following institutional mechanisms are likely to enhance success: a strong information and communication strategy that enhances programme reach and coverage and ensures stakeholder awareness; advance agreements with financial institutions; a simple and flexible registration process; appropriate use of technology to strengthen access, disbursement, and oversight; adequate implementation capacity to support processes of outreach, enrolment, and monitoring; monitoring and accountability mechanisms embedded in programme design; coordination mechanisms across government across social protection schemes; an effective management information system; and the provision of quality services in the sectors for which conditions are required. There is a very limited body of evidence that explores these institutional issues as they apply to the specific CCT programmes that are the focus of this report, however, there is more available evidence of the potential impact of ‘cash-plus’ programmes, which complement the transfers with other interventions designed to enhance their results or address the structural barriers to well-being