Third International Conference on Conditional Cash Transfers
Istanbul, Turkey
June 26-30, 2006
Governance in CCTs: Complaints Resolution and Appeals
Sandor Sipos
World Bank June 29, 2006
06-29-I.b
Complaints and Appeals against Exclusion
– A family who has not been selected may appeal under the CCT Programme:
• Meets both the poverty and the behaviour eligibility criteria, but errors committed by programme offices left the family out. Meets the poverty criteria but defaults on behaviour requirements due to circumstances beyond the families control and questions judgment of programme offices. Does not meet the poverty eligibility or the behavior criteria but claims that denying access is not fair on longer term vulnerability or other higher order grounds.
•
•
2
Complaints and Appeals on Service Provision
– Any member of the community, including beneficiary families may file a claim under the CCT Programme whenever concerns arise with service provision (by the health or education sector or the program units) as to: • Quality of service provision • Attention received under the programme • Suspicion of corruption
3
Institutional Options in Complaint Resolution
• • Program Offices (operation or coordination unit)
– Review human mistakes that disqualified families
Third Party (community committee, ombudsman, etc.)
– Genuine exclusion errors (ex. Poor families not captured by proxy means formula) – Increased objectivity and systemic learning opportunities – Corrupt acts by program and sectorial officers
•
Departments of Line Ministries: communication and the rules regulating escalating issues to higher levels
– Supply service provision: health, education and others and their territorial and inter-agency hierarchies – Quality Program processes: interaction between beneficiary families and program officers
•
Legal system: seeking court decision
– Violation of the rights of beneficiaries
4
Questions
• • What legal and procedural remedies are available in existing CCTs? Which remedies are seen as more effective: participatory local stakeholder review, third party review, escalating to higher levels of multiple sectoral administrations, legal or out-of-court procedures? Are complaints and appeals helpful in minimizing exclusion errors among most vulnerable populations or lead to more inclusion errors undermining the sustainability of CCTs? Is handling complaints and appeals more of a design and legal or a capacity issue? What kind of complaints and appeals issues middle and low income countries anticipate respectively while introducing CCTs and how best to prepare for handling these issues?
•
• •
5