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CCTs through a wellbeing lens: The importance of the relationship between front-line officers and participants in the Oportunidades/Prospera programme in Mexico

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 May 2016

Viviana Ramírez
Viviana Ramírez*
Affiliation:
Department of International Relations and Political Sciences, Universidad de las Américas Puebla and Department of Social and Policy Sciences, University of Bath E-mail: rmrz.viviana@gmail.com
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Abstract

This article explores the social relationships created in the delivery of conditional cash transfer (CCT) programmes using a wellbeing lens. Most CCTs influence people's lives in overarching terms, including income, health and education. Their implementation process, however, also places policy participants in new and constant interactions with the front-line officers that implement the programmes. Wellbeing scholarship brings to our attention the centrality of social relationships in people's lives. This literature widely agrees that the quality of our relationships with others is possibly the most essential element of a good life. Therefore, given the recent entrance of wellbeing to the realm of policy, an exploration of the relationships created in policy contexts using a wellbeing lens is a necessary next step. This article examines this in the context of the Oportunidades/Prospera programme in Mexico, one of the most successfully regarded CCTs in Latin America. It presents primary qualitative data about the officer–recipient relationship during the delivery of the health conditionalities and explores its implications on the wellbeing of recipients. The article concludes that the relationships created during policy implementation have far-reaching effects on wellbeing and need to be better acknowledged in policy design and evaluation.

Keywords

CCTsOportunidadesProsperawellbeingmixed-methodssocial relationshipsofficer–recipient interactionsclient-providerpolicy delivery
Type
Themed Section on Assessing the Effects of Conditional Cash Transfers in Latin American Societies in the Early Twenty-First Century
Information
Social Policy and Society , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , July 2016 , pp. 451 - 464
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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