Argument & Key Findings

Conditional cash transfers (CCTs) have been a widespread and effective tool in reducing poverty in Latin America. CCT programs transfer cash to the poor on the condition that recipients engage in beneficial behaviors, like enrolling their children in school, vaccinating them, or taking them to see a physician. CCTs aim to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty, especially among women. Indeed, women are central to CCTs as they are often responsible for children’s health and nutrition as well as ensuring that they remain enrolled in school.

Alberto Díaz-Cayeros reviews the scholarship on CCTs in Latin America, where much of that research had originated, shedding light on these programs’ workings and effects. Particular focus is given to how CCTs have helped overcome shortcomings of democratic systems, including ‘clientelism,’ broadly understood as the practice of politicians trading goods or services for votes. Despite CCTs’ broad success, challenges persist, especially regarding their use to mitigate poverty that is concentrated in rural areas as well as among indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples. The reader learns that CCTs are deeply interwoven with the behavior of politicians and the mobilization of social groups for political goals. CCTs are very malleable tools, having been adapted to the advent of COVID-19 when contagion and income loss were prevalent among the poor. CCTs have been one of the most rigorously evaluated interventions by social scientists. Most generally, they have reduced poverty, inequality, and infant mortality, while increasing school enrollment and nutrition.
 

Conceptualizing & Measuring Poverty

Díaz-Cayeros builds an incredibly rich historical overview of poverty in Latin America. This includes both its persistence and its dramatic decline in recent decades, CCTs having played a key role in the latter process. However, national-level declines obscure the wide disparities that persist at the subnational level and among historically marginalized communities. In addition, efforts (like CCTs) aimed at tackling poverty have often failed to address inequality, because social spending in Latin America has at times been regressive, i.e., taking resources from the poor and giving them to the middle and upper classes. Meanwhile, fiscal resources are often transferred to poor regional governments, as opposed to the individuals within them.

Poverty persists in part because of ‘poverty traps,’ a technical concept tied to factors like limited access to credit and education as well as poor health. These problems are especially pronounced in rural areas, which are often isolated from economic activity, lack the social mobility of cities, and tend to feature systemic exclusion along ethno-racial lines. The measurement of poverty has become increasingly sophisticated, moving beyond income to incorporate assets, basic needs, and geospatial data. The upshot of Díaz-Cayeros’ overview is that measurements of poverty, which any evaluation of CCTs must incorporate, often fail to account for poverty traps and their concentration among distinct groups in specific areas.

Background & Variation

Díaz-Cayeros examines the historical roots of CCTs, highlighting the role of 20th-century Latin American governments in replacing Catholic charities and philanthropists as the primary actors addressing poverty. These governments sought to target primarily urban poverty, owing to large-scale processes of internal migration, which moved workers away from agriculture and into factories and the informal economy. This helps explain the persistence of rural poverty. State social spending was undermined by the Latin American debt crises of the 1980s and 1990s, which disproportionately harmed the rural poor. The 2010s commodity boom enabled a re-expansion of social spending, although these programs continued to be insufficient to lift historically marginalized peoples out of poverty. The creation of CCTs by Mexican economist Santiago Levy in the 1990s can thus be placed against this backdrop of poverty, austerity, and labor market change.

CCTs have been widely adopted across Latin America by governments of different partisan leanings. One important determinant of this process has been fiscal constraint: because CCTs are relatively inexpensive, wealthier countries adopted them later. It should also be noted that effective CCTs depend on effective states, which provide, among other things, the hospitals and schools that recipients must utilize. By the mid-2020s, nearly 60 programs existed across Latin America, varying widely in terms of the share of beneficiaries of the total population. Countries that adopted CCTs early on do not necessarily have larger shares of beneficiaries, and larger shares don’t necessarily mean a given CCT is effectively helping the poor.
 

Clientelism & Democracy

One of the most important political aspects of CCTs is their potential resistance to ‘clientelism.’ What this means is that universal and automatic criteria for CCT recipients can limit the ability of politicians to trade particular benefits for votes. As such, CCTs have helped improve Latin American democracy, partly because politicians who ‘credit-claim’ for implementing CCTs can be more readily held accountable. On the ground, politicians still find ways to perpetuate clientelism, for example by manipulating the distribution of non-CCT goods like water cisterns. However, the broader implications of CCT are significant: as citizens’ cash needs are met, they can more meaningfully participate in the democratic process.
 

Future Research

Díaz-Cayeros posits an agenda for future research. These include: (1) the ways that continued discrimination against indigenous and Afro-descendant communities may require changes to the design of CCTs, (2) the ways that CCTs can be complemented by private charities and NGOs; the ways that expansions to CCT might bring Latin American governments closer to providing a universal basic income, and (3) the sources of Latin American citizens’ support for CCTs, whether owing to moral sensibilities, fear of deprivation, or otherwise. Ultimately, CCTs have been broadly successful and adaptable, improving both the economic standing and political efficacy of poor citizens. Their long-term success depends upon addressing the victims of systemic exclusion and intergenerational poverty.

*Research-in-Brief prepared by Adam Fefer.

Santos, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2016 for his efforts to end a five-decades-long civil war with a guerrilla group that killed more than 200,000 people in the South American country, served as president of Colombia from 2010 to 2018.

Known as a tenacious negotiator, Santos said, “The big challenge in the 140 conflicts currently in the world is that leaders need to sit down and talk in very constructive ways.”

Titled “The Power of Long-View Leadership,” the event included opening remarks from Alberto Díaz-Cayeros, senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), as well as a brief response followed by an audience Q&A moderated by Héctor Hoyos, director of the Center for Latin American Studies.

Díaz-Cayeros said, “This discussion is especially timely and vital today as we confront global challenges – not only here in the United States but throughout the hemisphere and around the world – that demand both moral courage and a strategic vision.”

Listening, talking

In November 2024, Santos was appointed Chair of The Elders, the organization founded by Nelson Mandela to advocate for peace, justice, human rights, and a sustainable planet.

In his address, Santos explained the process of bringing the guerrilla group – the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or “FARC” — to the peace negotiating table. A meeting in the late 1990s with Mandela, the South African anti-apartheid activist, was particularly inspirational.

“He taught me why that program (in South Africa) to bring victims and perpetrators together to reconcile for the future was so important,” said Santos, who described it as the most interesting conversation he’s ever had about peacemaking.

So, he started studying peace processes all around the world — the ones that were successful, the ones that failed, and the ones that still held out hope. Gradually, he identified the conditions that were necessary to begin an authentic peace process with the FARC.

“What had my predecessors done wrong? What could I bring from other examples around the world?” He came to understand that three key conditions existed in the Colombian dynamic.

“As long as the guerrillas think that they will win through violence,” Santos said, “they will never sit down in good faith. They have to be convinced that they will never achieve power through violence. Second, the leaders of the guerrillas themselves personally have to be involved in the negotiations.”

Finally, he said, Colombia’s neighbors needed to support the peace process, or the guerrillas would always use those neighbors as safeguards and not commit to the peace process.

Santos brought on advisors who had successfully negotiated peace deals in other global hotspots. Some of the advice was especially sage.

“I was told to treat the FARC not as our enemies but as our adversaries. Enemies you eliminate. Adversaries you beat.” So, he instructed his military to make policy changes and to be conscious of all their actions, which they would live with forever.

“Treat them (FARC members) as human beings,” Santos said. “They have mothers, they have fathers, so while you fight with them, understand that they're human beings. So, I changed the whole military doctrine.”

A 2016 national referendum in Colombia rejected the peace deal by a narrow margin. Since then, the government and FARC have largely upheld the ceasefire and called for a broader national dialogue to continue the peace process.

Today, Santos is concerned that the gains from Colombia’s peace agreement with the FARC are unraveling. “The difficult path in every peace process is how to reconcile in order to have peace in the long run.”
 

Humanity’s clock ticks

In January, Santos was invited to deliver an address at the annual unveiling of the Doomsday Clock’s time, which is set by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. He noted that the only criteria that existed through the 1990s was the possibility of nuclear war. Now, existential threats to humanity’s fate have rapidly expanded, including climate change, AI, pandemics, and biological threats.

At 89 seconds to midnight, the Doomsday Clock stands closer to catastrophe than at any moment in its 77-year history, Santos said. The clock speaks to the threats that confound and confront us — and the need for cooperation, unity, and bold leadership to turn back its hands.

Unfortunately, what is happening around the world reflects the contrary, Santos said. The multilateral system, the respect for the rule of law, and the respect for protocols are all under attack.

Long-term leadership that makes decisions — not according to the next election, but according to the well-being of future generations — is what the world truly needs, Santos noted.

“How can we do what we did in Colombia on the world stage? That is the great challenge, and that’s when dialogue is imperative,” he said.
 

Instead of competing amongst each other to see who wins this or who wins that, Santos urged that “world leaders need to sit down and talk about how to work together to avoid nuclear war, control climate change, regulate AI, and more.”

“Every second counts,” he concluded.

Student and community engagement

Following the lecture, Professor Héctor Hoyos praised Santos for his unwavering commitment to education, both as President and throughout his career. Reflecting on a personal experience, Hoyos shared a formative moment from his own childhood, when he received a letter from then-Secretary of Education Santos, recognizing him as one of Colombia's most promising young students. "I want to thank you publicly for that gesture, which went a long way," Hoyos said of the experience that inspired him to pursue the scholarly path he follows today.

The lecture also sparked lively engagement among students, many of whom lined up to ask thoughtful questions about applying Santos’ insights to current global challenges. Their inquiries reflected a desire to connect lessons from Colombia’s peace process to diverse contexts around the world. Santos, practicing the very principles of dialogue he had emphasized, listened attentively, responded thoughtfully, and demonstrated a genuine willingness to engage in a constructive exchange of ideas.

After the event, Santos joined more than twenty students from the Graduate School of Business and other programs for a lunch, where discussions continued on leadership, peacebuilding, and the importance of dialogue in addressing contemporary issues.

Maduro’s attempts at electoral fraud overshadowed Venezuela's presidential election on July 28, 2024. Afterward, the Venezuelan democratic movement provided evidence showing that their candidate, Edmundo González, had won with about 70% of the vote. Since then, the Maduro regime has stifled the opposition and thwarted democratic reforms as he seeks to regain office in January. Meanwhile, Machado has been forced into hiding to evade arrest by Maduro's regime but remains resolute in her decision to stay in Venezuela, where she continues to lead the movement.

In 2023, Machado won the Venezuelan opposition primaries with 93% of the vote. But the Maduro regime immediately, and illegally, disqualified her from running in the 2024 presidential election. She then took charge of revitalizing the country’s pro-democracy movement, rebuilding it from the ground up and infusing it with renewed purpose.

In introducing Machado, Kathryn Stoner, the Mosbacher Director of CDDRL, said, “Her leadership has been a beacon of hope for millions of Venezuelans as she continues to inspire them in the fight against authoritarianism.”

‘We surprised everyone’

Machado spoke about the election aftermath and a “window of opportunity” to act now to safeguard democracy. “The final outcome of this process is certainly existential for the Venezuelan people. It is critically strategic for the region and of great importance for all Western democracies, especially for the United States, and that's why we've received bipartisan support.”

Today, Venezuela ranks last on the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law index — 142 out of 142 countries. “Every single democratic institution has been devastated,” said Machado, describing the current situation as a “full-fledged tyranny” and adding that 8 million people have been forced to flee her country.

Despite such conditions, she said, in the past two years, Venezuelans have built up a democratic movement — “they told us it was impossible” — that reflects a deeper social response. “We decided to understand, to heal, and to trust each other.”

The regime underestimated the growth of this movement, she said. “We defeated the regime in the streets and in the hearts of Venezuelan people. We defeated them before in the spiritual dimension and then in the electoral process. And we've surprised everyone.”

They created a well-organized network of citizen volunteers who could be deployed in every single polling station and other places, all of whom were profoundly motivated around the cause, Machado said. “We did it without media at all,” since Maduro's government would not allow her to appear in traditional media channels and the campaign couldn't run ads on social media — there was no money.

Machado said, “We united a country around common values — human dignity, solidarity, justice, private property, and freedom. We united Venezuela around a profound desire: We wanted our kids back home; we wanted our families reunited.”

In the election, González won by a landslide, she said, roughly 70 percent to Maduro’s 30 percent. Immediately, the regime struck back, detaining and arresting thousands of pro-democracy advocates and even torturing some people.

“The reaction of the regime was ferocious,” she said. “We are facing a situation where the regime wants to create terror and totally paralyze this movement.”

But the Venezuelan pushback to the Maduro repression has been dramatic, she said. Machado estimates that if the election were held today, the pro-democracy candidate would get 90 percent of the vote.

“We have a united opposition, more than ever before,” she said, noting vows of support from the international community. January 10 is the day when Maduro would be sworn in again as president. “We will never give up, and I'm sure freedom will prevail in our country.”

International action

“The challenge,” Diamond said, “is to get President Maduro, who has lost the election, to acknowledge that he's lost and leave power.” He asked Machado what the international community should do. (On November 19, a day after the CDDRL event, the U.S. formally recognized González as the president-elect.)

She responded, “We have to make these people understand that they will be held accountable. If they keep repressing our people, international justice should act immediately, and that hasn’t happened yet.”

On top of this, she added, Maduro’s ties to criminal activities and black markets need to be examined by international partners. Even the Venezuelan military largely supported the pro-democracy opposition.

“The (global) law enforcement approach can be more comprehensive, involving different agencies and different countries, so these individuals understand this regime is not sustainable from financial, political, and human perspectives,” she said.

Diamond asked if criminal indictments of members of the Maduro regime could be on the table, whether by the United States, European countries, or the International Criminal Court.

Machado acknowledged this point and recommended a few international strategies: Maduro has to be totally isolated, and González has to be recognized as the president-elect; a global law enforcement approach needs to crack down on Maduro’s criminal activities; the International Criminal Court needs to make a decision on the election; and every democratic government in the world needs to advocate for a negotiated transition for Venezuela to peacefully move ahead.

Democracies worldwide

During the Q&A portion of the event, a student audience member asked what the expatriate Venezuelan community should know and do about the situation.

Machado said, “One of our main assets now is this great diaspora that has turned Venezuela into a global cause. People are preparing abroad, learning, and getting ready to come back and build a great society.”

She added that her country’s abundant oil reserves could literally transform Venezuelan society if used wisely, unlike under Maduro’s tenure, and be used as a key element to fund the country's energy transition.

As Stoner noted in her opening remarks, “The struggle for democracy in Venezuela is not just a national issue — it's a global one. The fate of Venezuela speaks to the broader challenges that democracies are facing worldwide, including our own.”

You can read more about this event in The Stanford Daily.