In this episode, Francisco V. Ayala discusses his new book, Cash Transfers for Poverty Reduction: An International Operational Guide (Routledge, 2023), co-authored with GDI’s David Lawson. The book offers the first systematic discussion of the design and implementation of cash transfer programmes, including practical guidance for students and key stakeholders who are – or will be – responsible for designing, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating such programmes.
Francisco is an international social protection consultant and President of Ayala Consulting Corporation/SOPROEN. David Lawson is Senior Lecturer in Development Economics and Public Policy at the Global Development Institute.
Find out more about the Global Development Institute:
Intro music Anna Banana by Eaters
In this episode, Francisco V. Ayala discusses his new book, Cash Transfers for Poverty Reduction: An International Operational Guide (Routledge, 2023), co-authored with GDI’s David Lawson. The book offers the first systematic discussion of the design and implementation of cash transfer programmes, including practical guidance for students and key stakeholders who are – or will be – responsible for designing, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating such programmes.
Francisco is an international social protection consultant and President of Ayala Consulting Corporation/SOPROEN. David Lawson is Senior Lecturer in Development Economics and Public Policy at the Global Development Institute.
Find out more about the Global Development Institute:
Intro music Anna Banana by Eaters
Chris Jordan So, hello and welcome to the Global Development Institute podcast. My name's Chris Jordan. I'm the communications manager for GDI, and today I'm joined by Francisco Ayala. Francisco has worked for the last 25 years on cash transfers, on social protection, on all things social-safety-net-related. And he has just published a book with GDI's own David Lawson called 'Cash Transfers for Poverty Reduction: An International Operational Guide'. So, Francisco, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for joining me.
Francisco Ayala Thank you very much, Chris. Yes, thank you for the invitation. And yes, I'm open for any questions you may have about the book and what we've got.
Chris Jordan Right. Well, I'm really interested to start off with your own background and your experience. As I say, you've worked 25 years in this field. You've worked in Kenya, in Nigeria, Uganda, Tanzania, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Colombia, over 50 countries, I believe, on various programs. Could you just start by saying how did you sort of get into this field in the first instance?
Francisco Ayala Well, perhaps, you know, sometimes in life coincidences happen. When I began my college studies, I did engineering. And then later in my own country, Ecuador, I'm from Ecuador. And then I moved to the US for doing a master's and PhD, but believing that I wanted to continue in engineering. But somehow, as always happens, I changed my mind. I got into these things of all of the social aspects of life. By coincidence, well, I ended up in Washington, D.C. My university was next to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. And then, you know, working on these social aspects, I realised very quickly that because of my engineering background, that these institutions or these development agencies, they are very interested in evaluation, in policy making, those kind of aspects. But again and again and again, they were saying the programs were not being run correctly, were not actually being built correctly. And then I thought that 'Oh, this is perhaps a good target or a good niche where I can go and provide assistance'. And that was the way that, you know, I ended up saying, 'Why not let me do the engineering part of implementing these programs?' And very quickly, I had a chance to start working in different countries and, as you mentioned, countries that typically had major problems with the implementation part of these programs.
Chris Jordan And I'm guessing over the 25 years you've been working on these issues, you must have seen that the agenda and interest and the whole sector move a significant amount. How have things shifted from your perspective?
Francisco Ayala Well, let me tell you one thing, that perhaps in my case, I was lucky that I was able to see this niche in which not many people were interested. Why? Because I and as you can imagine, people working in the social sector, typically tend to be economists. Even though I was doing that PhD in economics and public administration, because of my engineering background, very quickly, I realised that this niche, not many people were interested. Not many people were working in it. And then for me initially it was easy or relatively easy to go to and start working in these countries and understand the challenges they have. Well, even for me it was a learning process over the years, you know? How is it that these programs could be implemented? At the very beginning, to tell you a little of history, what I learned at the very beginning, let's say 30 years ago, is that these social protection systems, the ones that are dealing with the poor and vulnerable people, they were designing and implementing programs that I call supply side programs. So, the big gurus, the big consultants, the United Nation gurus. Upon their studies and whatever they did, they decided how and what to provide to the poor. There was this assumption that we knew more about the needs of all of the poor people. So then, you know, these big consultants and experts were doing things. However, over the years, especially the early 2000s, Duflo, the famous economist from MIT said, 'Hold on, hold on'. I mean, all these experts are coming and saying - even though, of course, doing interviews and whatever - they were deciding what and how to help. Duflo said, 'Hold on. I mean, when are we going actually to listen and let people decide what they want?'. How is it that I decide, for example, in the cash transfer that I should provide $30 per month? But what about the decision of the beneficiary should it be that the beneficiary needs $30, $15, $40? Well, basically cash. So that was the next step, you know, to start working in how to complement the social protection systems not only with supply side but with demand side decisions in providing and developing mechanisms to complement that and say, okay, let's continue with supply side interventions, but as of now let's facilitate the poor. What to decide, what to actually get in terms of services that will be useful for them. And then lately, only in the last decade I would say, there is a new concept. The new concept is what we call the adaptive social protection. Meaning, you know, with climate change, now we are facing a number of disasters and emergencies and the frequency of them are becoming more and more important in our lives. In Africa right now in Malawi, there are more than one, I mean, actually 2 to 3 emergencies per year, in which people suffer because of the consequences of climate change, the droughts, the floods, the typhoons and then, you know, the latest is to coordinate the emergency response sector and the social protection sector to help the poor. But as you see, over the years, the systems to help the poor and vulnerable people have become more and more complex. And therefore also engineering is becoming more and more complex on the way to implement them. So, this is where we are right now at this stage.
Chris Jordan Right. Thanks. I know we're talking to you this morning from... You're based in Malawi at the moment. Could you just run through briefly what you've been doing in Malawi?
Francisco Ayala Well, yesterday I had a meeting with the ministry, with a person of the ministry. It's called here the Social Ministry in this country, but we were laughing about one thing. Let me share with you this anecdote. We were telling that in Malawi we are doing better than in Mexico. Remember, in Mexico they are going through this disaster, this hurricane in Acapulco that destroyed a great deal of different parts of the city. The interesting part, we were commenting yesterday, is that in Mexico, the people in Mexico are saying they are not getting help, while the government is saying say, yes, we are helping them. So, what is the problem then? What is the disconnection? And yesterday in Malawi, I said, we found connection in our work. You know why? Because that's the thing, that typically the systems, the social protection systems, are designed, you know, to help those that are already in the system. So, the poor who are affected, are receiving cash or assistance every month... When there is a disaster in the same area, yes, they can get a top up and then they are helped. But you know what? The ones that are not in the social protection system, are affected by the disaster. Probably they were small vendors, the ones with small boats, the people, you know, the lower middle class working here and there and trying, you know, to build their lives. But this disaster came, and everything was destroyed. And now they have nothing. But, you know, what's the problem? The government has no idea, no information about them. And they are the ones on TV, in the media, saying 'we are not getting help'. What is needed in Malawi is to develop the systems in order to assist people that are not part of the social protection system. So, when there is an emergency, an emergency or disaster right now... There was actually a few weeks ago a cyclone here in Malawi that destroyed a great deal of the southern areas in the country with rains and flooding. So now we have a programme of over 200,000 households that were affected, utilising the right mechanisms to help them, even those, especially for those, that are not part of that regular cash transfer programme of Malawi. So, we are helping not only those that are already in the system, but those that before were okay, but because of the disaster have got nothing. So, we are helping both kinds of people. Imagine, in Malawi, one of the poorest countries in the world, we are doing better than in Mexico. That is what was kind of the story yesterday. And this is what we are doing in Malawi, is that we are in this process of implementing with the assistance of the World Bank, with over 200,000 households, a program of over $20 million. But the point is to respond to the need in record time. Because people cannot wait months until the help comes.
Chris Jordan Great to hear. And yeah, good luck with the implementation. I wanted to turn now to the to the book, specifically cash transfers for poverty reduction. I've had a look. It's an epic tome you've written. It's almost 500 pages long. You start off with the big concepts around cash transfers and safety nets and, you know, the broad sort of policy debates. But then you really get into really granular detail about exactly how people should think about stepping in, setting programs up and different elements of the program. So, tell me, what was your inspiration for writing the book in the first place?
Francisco Ayala Well, look at what I told you at the very beginning. Why is it that I got into this niche and was able to work in many countries up to now? Over 50 even... You know, I was almost kidnapped in countries like Nigeria, Yemen, Colombia. But this is what we do, this is what we do. Or perhaps, you know, let me make it easy for our audience. What is it that we are trying to do? There are many books about cash transfers at this point. You see, the cash transfer programs actually started in the 1990s, late 1990s, as you know, with the initiative in Mexico and Brazil, the concept was developed more and more and then conditionalities. But the books you find, the papers you deal with, are more related to policy making. The policy making explores the idea of whether actually these programs should be implemented. The more and more we are going there, the more countries are implementing them. Over 140 right now. And then, of course, after the policy making, also a number of books came up about, you know, telling about the evaluations and the architecture of these programs. When I say architecture, it means the same parameters. How much we should provide? What would be the eligibility criteria for the poor, the household? And what would be the exit policies until when we pay them? What would be the payment? But you know, these kinds of books and papers that were developed before are answering the 'what'? What would be the design parameters of these programs? And these programs actually were based upon the evaluations. But you know what? The evaluations, as I explained before, came out always saying everything is okay. But the problem is still in the operations - in the 'how'. The operational part, the implementation part, still is very poor, and this is what they didn't do. And then there is no single book, I would say up to now in the market dealing with that part. But the engineering part explaining to the audience, explaining to the ministry officers, the students about the engineering detail you should take into consideration in order to improve your designs. Already the policymakers, already the evaluations tell you what should be done. But the question is how to do it, because you are dealing with hundreds of millions of dollars and in every sector - electricity, all the sectors they have, even full universities, departments, PhDs, engineering, etc., deal with these aspects. But you know what? In the social sector, nothing. Well, that's perhaps an exaggeration, but very little. Even at the University of Manchester or any other university, check any course. Say I'm going to teach the engineering of how to implement these programs, you don't find it. And this is the aspiration of this book, but of course, this may be a little boring for policymakers or for council. All that is doing is, you know, answering the questions of 'what?' But this is oriented for students who are interested in the engineering part. And this is the typical aspect that actually people or authorities in government are looking for, trying to hire them in order to have the necessary capital resources or the human resources, you know, to provide this assistance, in order to make these programs more efficient, cost effective on the engineering part. So, it's like when you build a house, I mean, well, that's fine until the architects are... Okay, they can actually design a very nice house but in order to have a good house, you need the engineers, the civil engineers. This is the same in the social protection sector. So, this book actually answers or tries to answer those aspects. As you can imagine, the engineer has many aspects to deal with. In the book, we took some of the basic ones. Perhaps if we see that the book is utilised, we'll go into subsequent editions, adding more aspects to these aspects. So that's part of the reason that it's a long book, over 500 pages and took us over five years to build.
Chris Jordan Yeah, and you mentioned engineering at the top of the book, you sort of explicitly call for the need for social protection engineers. So, could you say a little bit more about what you mean? What's the call for social protection engineers?
Francisco Ayala Let me give you one. The experience that we are having right now is that, yes, over 200,000 households were affected... Families. If you multiply that by five, then there's about 1 million people. And then the very basic thing you need to do is first register that. You need to register and you have to register them in record time, let's say a week, two weeks. So, the engineering part means: 'How then should I come up with the logistics? The number of the number of materials and people? How much time?' Also consider, I mean, how long we need these people that already are affected to be in the registration process? We don't want them in queues or spending days waiting for somebody to register them. We want them to spend very little time. That's the engineering part - it's, you know, it's to organise these massive processes in record time, being very efficient and very client-oriented. Like in any other process that you see. So even when you go to movies, you know, or you go to a big concert or to a main match in England to see Manchester United... Well, they are not that good now, but the thing is that you don't want people to wait in queues. You want to move them smoothly through the seats. The same goes for us, and that is the engineering part. And, of course, that needs to be supported by systems, by software applications and also what applications need to be developed need to actually develop good security. And not only that. We need to train the officers, but for that we need to provide the guidelines, how to do and what to do. And as you can imagine, when you register 200,000 people. Sorry, 200,000 families, there are many 'what if's. What if the person didn't bring their I.D.? What if only children come? What if the mother doesn't speak the language? What if? What if? What if? So those answers need to be... Those questions need to be designed with answers so that when the time comes to implement those aspects, all those aspects need to be in place so you can have a smooth process. So that is engineering. That is what when we say engineering... That's what we are talking about.
Chris Jordan Thanks. And you mentioned complexity earlier. Is there also a role for the social protection engineer around trying to reduce complexity? I think there's quite often a tendency to stack programs on top of one another. What’s your take on that?
Francisco Ayala Well, that is... I would say... Still, there is this debate, especially in countries like this, Malawi. Should we introduce high-level technology to help beneficiaries here in Malawi? Even when the access to the Internet or the access, you know, to complicated and sophisticated cell phones is not there? What is the kind of engineering that should be applied when at the same time you have different programs running? And as I said before, in this new concept... not new concept but a more sophisticated concept, which is called adaptive social protection. Now, what we have tried is to make the two sectors - the disaster response sector and the social protection sector - work together. Over the years, the shock response sector, typically they are very preoccupied. Their objective is to reduce casualties, to reduce victims. So, they are always, you know, preparing for the disaster, telling, alerting, doing these kinds of designs to actually protect and reduce the risk for people when the disaster arrives. But after that, they are not much interested in what happens. Nevertheless, even though you do all this, you see that when you face a disaster, there are many casualties, destruction, and many people affected. What to do with that? So, what this sector says is, 'Oh, the social protection should take care of it'. But as I told you, with the example of Mexico, look at what is happening right now in Turkey, with a major disaster that happened a few months ago with over 50,000 people dead. Yes, 50,000 people dead, but also half a million people with nothing. What to do with them? But the majority of them are not in the system, are not their regular beneficiaries. But then they have to be included. How fast can this social protection do so? And how can it coordinate with the emergency response sector in order to help people? So, the complexities are getting bigger and bigger. And you see, because of this lack of working together, this lack of coordination, you see on TV, you see on the news all the time, people complaining and complaining because they are not receiving the proper help. Because the sectors are not properly prepared, adequately prepared, you know, to respond to these kinds of situations, and this is what we are trying to overcome. But of course, as you can imagine, you've got to go with what we call the bureaucratic inertia, meaning that governments, ministries and agencies are not really, you know, anxious. There's no anxious sense of solving all these processes in order to be better prepared. Typically, they respond when already the disaster is there. And I'm not talking about countries like Malawi. All types of countries, even developed countries, have and face the same challenges. Look at what is happening in Mexico. So, this is our... I would say our main challenge these days is to get better prepared because climate change is telling us that the frequency of disasters, emergencies is increasing. So, we need really to develop this sense of resilience among the poor and ensure sectors are prepared to answer properly to these kinds of emergencies that are happening. They are happening day after day.
Chris Jordan Yeah. And I guess that's something that we saw in almost all countries around the COVID response, right? Particularly northern countries in the UK. You know, this isn't just a kind of an emergency response to natural disasters or climate, right?
Francisco Ayala Yes, exactly. Look at what happened back then. You are talking about COVID in Malawi when, remember, the cities shut down...the country shut down in mid-2020, I think. Yes. Well, what is the problem? Well, at least in the case of developed countries, middle income countries, we had the means, you know, to survive, to work through, to stay at home, to get food, etc. But in the poor countries, those kinds of mechanisms were not there. So, when the cities were shut down, immediately a month after we saw and realised that actually people had... Well, they were hungry. I mean, the food was not there. It's the kind of purchase that they buy every day, and the food was not delivered from the rural area. So then these are the aspects that you have to take care of and be prepared for. In the case of Malawi, I remember, we developed and we put in place this cash transfer program for cities. And actually, we were able to provide assistance only about six, nine months after the disaster. And that was very late because nobody was prepared. But the thing is that, of course, the good news was that the dead, the level of death in Africa, was relatively low with respect to what happened in America or in Europe. And there were many violations happening in Africa, including in Malawi, because people had to move, you know, migrate into the rural areas in order to survive. But imagine if that was not the case. Imagine if the death rates were similar to what happened in America and Europe. Then the story would have been completely different. And what if when the next disaster happens, you know, the death rate in Africa ends up being much higher... Or in any Latin American country... Much higher than the last one like COVID. So, these are the kinds of aspects that need to work. And then for that you need technology, processes, engineering, and have the instruments ready in order to be prepared to react to these kinds of situations that we know are going to happen. The probabilities are very high and are getting higher and higher every day. So, what we are trying with our book is trying to provide the instruments, the instruments, you know, for students to actually get the experienced development help that all countries and agencies need in order to cover and answer these kind of things.
Chris Jordan Thanks. I know you're a busy man. There's one last question I wanted to ask you, which is around digital and mobile technologies. I'm sure this is something that must have changed spectacularly over the last even just five or ten years. And yet it must be very context specific. How do you think about sort of balancing efficiencies against access around the use of mobile money or mobile generation systems?
Francisco Ayala Yes. Let's talk about money. Let's talk about money. Look, the thing is, ten years ago, I remember we were discussing about how to adapt technology to the needs of these countries, like in Asia or Latin America or Africa. At some point, I remember an anecdote I used to tell the experts. I'd say... Look at that. The problem of using cell phones in rural areas, either in Asia or in any of these poor countries, doesn't matter the continent... You know what? 50% of the household heads or the wives... in case the money was oriented to them, more than 50% needed glasses. I don't know if you have glasses, but in my case, I guess I wear glasses. So how can you expect that if over 50% of them need glasses and don't have them are going actually to read and check the cell phone? So, this was for us, a big question, a big wondering about what we should do. We cannot use mobile technology just because of that. So, what we learned over the years is that... basically, we adapted to whatever is available because the private sector in technology, they go for whoever is willing to pay. They never design for the poor. There is no money. The World Bank or these or the DFID or any of these development agencies are not really paying attention to these kinds of aspects. Because firstly they are expensive, and second the technology has its own characteristics and speed. So, what we realised later is that we have to adapt to whatever is available. So, look at the case, for example, in some of the countries in Africa. Yes, the payments are using mobile and go through mobile systems, meaning that we transfer the money to the cell phone. But 90% of our beneficiaries don't have cell phones. So, you know what we provide to them? We provide SIM cards. So, what they have, instead of a paper saying that they are entitled for money, what they get is a SIM card. But the next thing we have to do with them is tell them that that SIM card is going to give you a given amount of money on such a date. And then you get to go to the small shop in whatever community - a few kilometres or hundreds of metres away - and then get into the cell phone of that small shop. And then the guy at the shop reads, you know, according to the password and username, reads the money entitled to the beneficiary and that person is obliged to give the beneficiary whatever amount of money. Once the transaction ends, the SIM card is returned to the beneficiary. This is an adaptation. Well, in that situation, our preoccupation is: don't accept any discount. Make sure that you receive such an amount and keep yourself the SIM card. But still, we were able to do mobile payments. When 90% don't have cell phones. So, this is what we are doing. You know, as more technology comes, we are adapting and making and coming up with ways - the best ways - of using the technology available...state-of-the-art. Adapting to what our beneficiaries, our poor people actually can do with it.
Chris Jordan And that seems like a great example of the sort of granular detail that the book gets into in terms of all the different policies, the practical effects, the steps that people really need to think about when they're trying to implement these kinds of cash transfer or social safety net programs. And thank you so much for joining us this morning, Francisco. It's a really interesting book. I really loved both, you know, the detail that it gets into, but also the case studies and the examples, the real-world examples that you put alongside it, which I think help bring it to life and give it sort of context and resonance. So, we'll put a link to the book in the notes to this podcast, and hopefully people can also find a blog and other material on the GDI website, which will give you a bit more of a sense of what's in the book. But yeah, thank you very much for joining us this morning, Francisco.
Francisco Ayala Yes, thank you. Thank you, Chris, and I really appreciate that and this conversation. My hope, to tell you the truth, is that with this kind of book, universities like the University of Manchester and others that are very, very deeply preoccupied with the social sector, having so many masters, start including these kinds of courses in which, you know, they will be able not only to train them in policy making and the architecture of these programmes, but also, you know, in the engineering of how to actually implement these programmes. The book includes, like a typical textbook, exercises for the students, so teachers can actually take advantage of that. And hopefully that would be great... If there is any metric or indicator to say that the book was successful, it would be that in a few years I will be able hopefully to see courses in engineering for social protection. Thank you very much, Chris.
Chris Jordan Thanks, Francisco. Bye.