(1) I’m still sorting out the semantics of my reaction to the Samantha Power’s resignation from the Obama campaign, and more to my general weariness/wariness towards the way this race seems to be going these days. My siblings and I had a fairly intense discussion yesterday morning regarding the Democratic primaries and the danger of so much passion with its resultant polarization. This is, of course, not a new topic, but one that took on a little more reality to me when I saw a link to a Times blog discussing Power’s slip and the consequences (You can read the article for the full story.) . She, for those of you who haven’t heard of her, is someone who is actually really inspirational on her own, with her intelligence, boldness, principles and hard-work….not to mention incredible writing skill (please please go read A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, if you haven’t) and passion. My reaction, quite honestly, was a mixture of sadness/foreboding combined with a somewhat paradoxical sense of relief. For as much as it concerns me that these kinds of comments appear to be spreading and kind of think Power is a good enough influence that she maybe shouldn’t have resigned, I really respect Obama for wanting to keep this a clean fight, and respect that he has supporters who believe in and abide by those principles. Everyone makes mistakes, especially passionate individuals, but that there are consequences (and discouragement of others following down the path) represents more to me that most of the increasingly suspect rhetoric that makes up the campaign season these days….
(2) I wrote a post a few years ago talking about a program in Brazil intended to incentivize keeping children in school and out of the labor force. A fellow Fogarty scholar emailed out a comment from The Lancet (a medical journal) discussing this type of program, Conditional Cash Transfers (CCT), which is described as:
During the past decade, countries with transitional and middle-income economies have introduced programmes that transfer money to poor households on the condition that they comply with a set of requirements, including attendance for health care, food and nutritional supplementation, and enrolment of children in school. Conditional cash transfer (CCT), a type of social contract, is both an alternative to more traditional social assistance with handouts and a complementary strategy to the provision of health and education services.1 Because poor families usually face the greatest barriers to health interventions, CCT helps to redistribute resources and thus reduces health inequities.2 For very poor families, cash provides emergency assistance, while the conditions promote longer-term investments in human capital.
The author goes on to discuss the numerous known benefits of programs such as this one, including evidence from a “systematic review of six CCT programmes in Latin America and Africa showed a fairly consistent picture of the effects of such programmes on the use of health-care and education programmes and, to some extent, growth and health outcomes for children early in life, despite some methodological concerns.”
The accompanying concerns are not too surprising, dealing with a need for a better understanding of which aspects of programs such as these (eg, health interventions, food supplements, and cash transfer) truly affect health-outcomes and the expense of programs such as these– particularly with regards to low-income countries for whom the program may not be cost-effective, let alone feasible without appropriate health and education services.
Conditional cash transfer: a magic bullet for health?
The Lancet 2008; 371:789-791
Kenji Shibuya
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