Pardada Pardadi uses money and other incentives to convince
parents to send their daughters to school. This reminds me of Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs,
which we learned a bit about in GPP 115.
Both CCTs and Pardada Pardadi aim to incentivize the poor to alter their
behavior to combat intergenerational poverty. While I see can see the benefits that a program like Pardada
Pardadi might be producing, I just wanted to add some thoughts and questions to
the discussion about conditionality and poverty alleviation.
Targeting some of the poorest in India and convincing them
to send their daughters to school by offering them money rests on the belief
that those families need to change their behavior to get themselves out of
poverty. A program like this puts
the blame on individuals rather than acknowledging the structural barriers in
place that prevent families from sending their children to school to begin
with. If it is believed that
sending girls to school is such a good thing, it might be worthwhile to address
the reasons that are holding families back rather than offering money to nudge
them towards making the right choice.
In his piece about CCTs, Guy Standing discusses some programs that gave
money to the poor without conditions attached to them. One of the first things people did was
send their children to school, and where one didn’t exist, the community built
one. Do we need to incentivize the
poor to act right?
Also, Pardada Pardadi provides schooling only to young
girls. The reason for this is to
educate the most marginalized and empower women in India. On their website, Pardada Pardadi claims
it is most importantly about gender empowerment. Specifically targeting young girls brings up other
issues. One of the points brought
up in the Maxine Molyneux reading from GPP 115 was that, by focusing efforts
only on girls, programs might be creating the opposite effect. Is it right to put the burden of
poverty alleviation on the backs of these young girls by giving them education
and money and encouraging them to fix the situations that put them and their
communities in poverty? There are
many programs in the world that do this.
Some would say it is unfair to make the women of the world responsible
for development and poverty alleviation.
As students in the global poverty minor, we have learned
that poverty interventions and development projects are more complex than they
may initially seem. Organizations
and programs that might be well intentioned might never be perfect, and it’s
possible to do harm while trying to do good. Ultimately, I think what Pardada Pardadi is doing is good,
but these are just some things to think about.
References:
Standing, Guy.
2011. “Behavioural conditionality: why the nudges must be stopped – an opinion
piece.” Journal of Poverty and Social Justice 19 (1): 27-38.
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ReplyDeleteHi Brandon! I did my PE with a women's empowerment organization in Guatemala so parts of this really resonated with me - particularly your question about how focusing on gender empowerment could put an unequal burden on women, suggesting that they are more "responsible" for development for their families and communities. I definitely think that's a plausible argument in some circumstances - for example, I've heard of situations where giving micro-loans to women actually increases domestic violence, if their husbands are not supportive of their wives involvement in these programs - but I also think that with education programs like the one you're talking about, the idea isn't to promote female education over male education per se, but to address the unequal access between men and women when it comes to education. So in a way, it can be seen as a structural solution!
ReplyDeleteNikki Brand, GPP Peer Advisor