Families in Action

This is a Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program aimed at increasing school attendance and improving health and nutrition in early childhood. The program focuses on the country’s poorest population, more specifically 20% of the most vulnerable families, who are identified and selected according to the System for Identifying Potential Beneficiaries of Social Programs.
The program serves 2.6 million families in Colombia’s more than 1,100 municipalities. It began by focusing on small, poor, and rural municipalities, but was eventually expanded to the entire country.
“Familias en Acción” comprises three different subsidies:
1) Nutritional, whose condition is participation in routine development and growth tests;
2) Primary education; and
3) Secondary education.
In the latter two cases, children and adolescents must attend school at least 80% of the time. Municipal governments are responsible for registering, monitoring, and complying with the conditions, as well as paying the benefits, which is done bi-monthly.

Impact evaluations

An impact evaluation study showed a reduction in property crime levels, more specifically robbery and vehicle theft, where reductions of 7.2% and 1.3%, respectively, were recorded in the days following the transfers. An assessment was also conducted to verify whether school attendance had the effect of “incapacitating” the involvement of adolescents in criminal activities, but no effect was observed [1].
A second impact evaluation study presented consistent evidence that cash transfer programs reduce criminal activity. This study evaluated the program using a fixed-effects panel strategy based on data from 1,061 Colombian municipalities and found that, during the months in which beneficiary mothers receive the money, the rate of domestic violence in the municipality decreases by 6% on average, with an impact observed mainly on intimate partner violence. The magnitude of the effect varies depending on the region, poverty levels, and length of participation in the program [2].

Bibliographic reference

[1] Camacho, A., & Mejía, D. (2013). Las externalidades de los programas de transferencias condicionadas sobre el crimen: El caso de Familias en Acción en Bogotá (No. IDB-WP-406). IDB Working Paper Series https://publications.iadb.org/publications/spanish/document/Las-externa…

[2] Rodríguez, C. (2015). Violencia intrafamiliar y transferencias monetarias condicionadas: El impacto de Familias en Acción en Colombia. Documento de Trabajo del BID IDB-WP-621. https://publications.iadb.org/es/publicacion/15478/violencia-intrafamil…

Information source

IDB inventory