My one month in the crux of India's poorest district definitely taught me to see through random 'optimistic' news, with a lot more confidence. This is very surely a skill I wouldn't have acquired in any other way.
For instance, this Economist article that claims that conditional cash transfers have been successfully implemented in Bangladesh. I cant help but snigger a big 'yeah right!'. I don't see any kind difference in behaviourial reactions to social programmes across the Indian sub-continent. Bangladesh, I am sure, is no different from India, as far as corruption is concerned. Even India has a few conditional cash transfer schemes, one of which is giving pregnant women a sum for delivering babies in government clinics (to tackle high maternal and infant mortality rates).
Here's how cash transfers fail in India: after traveling a long distance and finally reaching a government clinic, a wailing pregnant lady in labor is denied medical attention by the doctor/medical staff, unless the family pays a sum (which is usually almost half of the cash transfer cheque). Any sane person will not refuse to pay in that fragile hour. I have talked to several women about this and it is a standard practice across clinics.
So why do people still use these facilities?
The classic, all-pervading answer - something is better than nothing. In this case even half the sum that they were entitled to.
How do you solve such problems? Cash transfer is a good policy, but not having a working, complaint-lodging system, against a miscreant public servant, is signing up for failure.
America, has food stamps for those who don't earn enough.
- How do they manage corruption? They fail too.
- They have issues of over-usage and inflated costs. Over 15% of the population is on food stamps now. Numbers of recipients went from 30 mil in 2008 to 47 mil in 2012. A failing economy and the President are blamed for that.
- The developed world and it's cash transfer problems. Obesity and corporate America. Here! Bit of a misleading title, I thought. Highly rabble-rousing.
I have learned to constantly ask, 'what are ways in which a system can fail?'. People are amazingly ingenious in creating ways to destroy well-intentioned policies or smart products/services.
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