Modern Forms of Program
Delivery and Exclusion

In agricultural and premodern societies, access to political and economic spheres depended on informal social networks, and formal laws often assigned different rights and responsibilities to individuals according to their ethnicity, race, and gender. Civil registration documents played an important role for the inheritance of property among eligible populations, but not in everyday life for the majority of individuals. Modern life, however, increasingly requires an individual to have official proof of identity to fully exercise essential functions at transaction points such as opening a bank account, voting in elections, obtaining microcredit or more formal credit, holding title to land, or holding a formal sector job. The millions of individuals in the region who lack valid personal identification are effectively shut out from economically productive activities available to their fellow citizens.

Moreover, in Latin America modern forms for delivering social programs have often clashed with traditionally marginalized populations lacking identity documents. Although the extent of underdocumentation in Latin America and the Caribbean may be relatively lower than that observed in other areas of the world, including Africa and South Asia (as measured by children’s civil registration status), the Latin American and Caribbean region has moved rapidly to modernize targeting systems and adopt new methods of distributing program benefits. Unfortunately, however, those efforts have often had the unintended consequence of excluding the most vulnerable from social assistance programs.

SIZE OF THE UNDOCUMENTED POPULATION

A birth certificate represents an individual’s first contract with the state, a formal recognition of his or her name and identity with an implicit demand for future services. Among children younger than five in Latin America, approximately 15 percent lack a registered birth certificate (UNICEF, 2005). National estimates of the underregistration of births range from 7 percent in Peru to 23 percent in Bolivia and 26 percent in the Dominican Republic (Duryea, Olgiati, and Stone, 2006). Although comparable estimates of the lack of documentation among adults have not been produced regionally, reflecting in part the lack of a uniform and recognized methodology for accurate measurement, some information is available regarding a few specific countries in the region (Duryea, Olgiati, and Stone, 2007). In Peru, the National Civil Registry (Registro Nacional de Identificación y Estado Civil, or RENIEC) estimated that 1.5 million adults in that country did not have a national identity card (Documento Nacional de Identidad, or DNI) in 2005 (RENIEC, 2005). The National Commission on Modernizing the State in Ecuador estimated that 15 percent of that country’s total population is not registered (CONATEL, 2006). Estimates from recent censuses in Bolivia and Paraguay place the number of adults without national identification cards at 750,000 and 127,000, respectively (Duryea, Olgiati, and Stone, 2007).[1]

Traditionally excluded groups tend to have higher rates of underdocumentation, although there are some important exceptions. Throughout the region underregistration of births is higher in rural areas than in urban areas. Children from low socioeconomic backgrounds are less likely to be registered by age 5, and in many countries certain ethnic and racial groups have higher rates of underregistration. In the north and northeast regions of Brazil, for example, characterized by lower levels of education and income and a high concentration of Afro-Brazilians, birth underregistration is three times higher than in the wealthier south (IBGE, 2006). Although the birth registration of children does not vary significantly by gender in the region (Duryea, Olgiati, and Stone, 2006),[2] in some countries rural adult women are less likely to possess national identity documents than rural men. For example, in rural areas of Peru, 17 percent of women older than eighteen lack any identity document (DNI or passport) versus 9 percent of their rural male counterparts (INEI, 2006). In Paraguay rural women are also approximately twice as likely to lack a national identity document as their male counterparts (DGEEC, 2004).

Exclusion from social and economic programs can additionally occur on a discretionary basis when program administrators disregard rules or even laws guaranteeing universal access; lack of compliance with some laws suggests that these behaviors may not be interpreted as discretionary but the acceptable practice. Qualitative research suggests that school directors in the region commonly use the lack of birth certificates to ration scarce places in schools and to restrict scholarship funds to less-marginalized children (Ordóñez and Bracamonte, 2005). While practices vary across countries, the pattern for Nicaragua has been observed regionally. Children there are permitted to attend school provisionally but are not permitted to receive the diploma for finishing the primary level, nor are they permitted to enroll in the secondary level, without presenting a birth certificate. In Honduras children may enter first grade but will not be promoted to second grade unless a birth certificate is presented (Ordóñez and Bracamonte, 2005). According to 2001 household survey data for Brazil, 8 percent of children age 7–9 were reported not to be attending school because of a lack of documentation (Duryea, Olgiati, and Stone, 2006). While discretionary action on the part of individual agents may exclude individuals from participating in social programs in the region, it is also important to explore the more structured processes that have exclusionary impacts.

TARGETING

In a context of scarce resources and concerns about fraud and leakage in social programs, including the capturing of program benefits by better-off groups, technocrats in Latin America have embraced methodological advances in the delivery of social assistance. The desire for greater accountability requires procedures to verify eligibility for program benefits and monitor the transfer of funds. Rather than providing nonindividualized benefits on a geographical basis, program administrators utilize specific information on individual families and individuals to determine program eligibility and benefit levels. This trend in program design has also been seen in developed countries seeking more efficient use of resources. Much emphasis has been placed on the development of screening procedures to reduce “errors of inclusion,” that is, the leakage of benefits to nontargeted individuals. However, a trade-off may occur in the push to reduce errors of inclusion, with errors involving the exclusion of targeted individuals magnifying as additional filters are added to programs.

Social programs can therefore unintentionally intensify the social exclusion of the undocumented by treating official identification documents as strict requirements for program participation. Initial exclusion can have a particularly severe impact when there are only limited opportunities to enter the program at a later time under a revised set of conditions because new openings will not arise or because reassessment opportunities occur only infrequently. Many information systems used for program targeting, for instance, update their household rosters only every two to three years—a major delay from an individual family’s perspective. In some countries, such as Colombia and Ecuador, families can request to be reassessed on demand, but few households are aware of this right.

It is particularly interesting to consider how conditional cash transfer programs interface with documentation issues, because these programs have been at the forefront of adopting new targeting and benefit distribution technologies in the region. Figure 12.1 illustrates the different stages in program design and implementation in which the lack of identity documents can lead to exclusion. Programs with relatively strict documentation requirements have effectively excluded undocumented populations through screening or verification procedures.[3] Other conditional cash transfer programs, however, have taken a more flexible approach to eligibility requirements, incorporating the acquisition of identity documents into program objectives.

It is worthwhile to consider a few programs. As is the case for many conditional cash transfer programs, the Bono Desarrollo Humano (BDH) program in Ecuador uses an information system to target beneficiary households. The SELBEN (Sistema de Identificación y Elección de Beneficiarios), also in Ecuador, includes information from a short survey on dwelling characteristics as well as the human capital and earnings potential of family members.
The national identification number of all household members is included in the SELBEN database, as well as the birth certificate number of all children up to age 16. Families who score in the lowest two quintiles according to a statistical estimation proxying poverty status are eligible to participate in a series of targeted programs. However, families cannot be entered into the SELBEN if the head of the family or her spouse does not have a national identity document, effectively excluding them from all social programs that use the SELBEN for targeting, including Ecuador’s conditional cash transfer program (Cely, 2005). Although there have been exceptions to this regulation, with some families not meeting the documentation requirements initially being entered into the SELBEN on an idiosyncratic basis, they do not pass later checks of the targeting database and are dropped from it (Cely, 2005).[4]

A 2003 evaluation of the SELBEN found that the lack of documentation was an obstacle to inclusion in the SELBEN, especially for families in rural areas and older persons (Habitus, 2003, as cited in Cely, 2005).[5] The targeting system is only the first filter for inclusion; the conditional cash transfer program itself, the BDH, requires documentation from the head of the family as defined by the program. The targeting system designed by Brazil in 2002, the Cadastro Único, also records the different identity documents of family members in addition to characteristics of dwellings and personal characteristics (de la Brière and Lindert, 2005). Initially, official documentation of the defined family head was a required piece of information for inclusion in the registry (stage 2 exclusion in Figure 12.1) (de la Brière and Lindert, 2005).[6] Program administrators, however, quickly recognized the exclusionary impact of this condition and revised the eligibility requirements (Castañeda and Lindert, 2005). The information system for Cadastro Único continues to collect the information needed to facilitate the cross-referencing of individuals across different programs, but inclusion in the targeting database is not predicated on identity documents.

However, as in the case of the conditional cash transfer program in Ecuador, the defined head of the family is required, in order to enroll in Brazil’s conditional cash transfer program, Bolsa Familia, to provide an official form of identification, such as a social security card, taxpayer identification card, or voter card. Engel Aduan (2006) reports the lack of documentation among designated family heads has resulted in a rejection rate of 10 percent from the program. Traditionally excluded groups have been found to be particularly vulnerable to omission from the targeting system for the program. A recent government study found that 16 percent of residents of Quilombo communities, isolated areas inhabited by descendants of escaped Afro-Brazilian slaves, lacked any form of an official identity document and will be excluded from program benefits even after a planned extension of the targeting system to their communities (Cézar Nunes, 2007). Targeted documentation campaigns are planned to address this challenge.

Conditional cash transfer programs in Mexico and Central America can be characterized as taking a more neutral approach to official documentation, with administrators preferring to use other ways of selecting and enrolling beneficiaries in recognition of the high rates of underregistration among indigenous and poor populations. Oportunidades (previously Progresa, Mexico), Red de Protección Social (Nicaragua), and PRAF (Programa de Asignación Familiar, Honduras) do not require official documentation at the targeting and program enrollment phases. Oportunidades, for example, accepts local forms of identification that include photographs (Acosta Urquidi and Burstein, 2006). However, some programs have found that too much flexibility with respect to identity encourages misreporting. In response to some families’ listing ghost or neighbor children to receive higher benefits, PRAF began verifying the birth certificates of all children described as family members of a potential beneficiary household.

Some countries attempt to limit potential clashes between eligibility rules and underdocumentation by undertaking civil registration campaigns in communities immediately before a program is launched. In Colombia, for example, communities with high rates of underregistration that are scheduled to be included in the conditional cash transfer program Familias en Acción are first provided, through a targeted campaign, with information about civil registration before the program is launched locally. The information system SISBEN (Sistema de Selección de Beneficiarios para Programas Sociales—System for Selection of Beneficiaries for Social Programs) collects information on documentation status, but entry into the conditional cash transfer program is open to those with missing documentation. However, families do not receive the subsidy available through the program until the mother meets the documentation requirements for herself; missing documentation for children is not penalized for the first six months after enrollment in the program. Ordóñez and Bracamonte (2005) report that many families experience delays in receiving benefits as a result of problems with their documentation, although less than 5 percent remain permanently excluded from receiving benefits. Although Colombia’s approach of allowing enrollment but denying payment is somewhat more lenient than denying program eligibility, once the preprogram documentation campaign has run its course, no formal resources are available from the cash transfer program to subsequently assist families in obtaining their documents. To reduce potential exclusion from Bolsa Familia, Brazil has also begun to focus registration campaigns on poor communities.

Some social programs have incorporated documentation as a program target rather than a prerequisite. The most proactive stances are taken by Chile (Chile Solidario), Argentina (Plan Familias), and Peru (Juntos), where identity documents have become objectives for participating families with members lacking identity cards or birth certificates. In Chile Solidario, families are not subject to behavioral conditions but rather set objectives in seven areas, including identification, with the help of social workers. In 2004, 14 percent of beneficiary families set a goal of obtaining identification for at least one family member (Galasso, 2007). In the first year of its Programa Puente, Chile Solidario issued over 26,000 DNIs to poor families who were undocumented at the start of the program (Provoste Campillay, 2004). In the design phase of Plan Familias, pilot surveys in two Argentine municipalities indicated that 15–17 percent of intended beneficiaries lacked national identity cards, and the program subsequently developed procedures to assist families in acquiring identity documents. In the first year of the Juntos program in Peru, 85 percent of the 15,000 cases of mothers and children lacking identification were resolved.

Social programs that have adopted identification of beneficiaries as an objective have learned that it is not sufficient to make demands upon clients or civil registration systems without providing supporting resources. Many families with long-standing identity issues find themselves in a legal quagmire they are unable to navigate without skilled assistance. The provision of notaries, social workers, and lawyers is often necessary to help families navigate complex codes.

BANKING

The shift to distributing welfare subsidies through financial institutions represents a further modernizing trend that may have magnified exclusion.[7] Banking institutions in Latin America and the Caribbean generally require official documentation for face-to-face transactions or opening individual accounts. Most transfer programs, such as Familias en Acción in Colombia, require the main beneficiary to possess a national identity card because the bank where she collects her benefits requires this when verifying payments; when programs decide to provide benefits via electronic means, very few continue to offer recipients the option of collecting benefits in cash from the administrative office, a necessary condition for those who lack the documents required by banks (Agencia Presidencial para la Acción Social y la Cooperación Internacional, 2005). Oportunidades in Mexico is an important exception. Although most beneficiaries have embraced the financial accounts associated with Oportunidades, a small but solid proportion of the program’s clients continue to collect in cash.

There may be many potential benefits to shifting the payment systems of social programs from cash to electronic payments through financial systems. For example, in Argentina and Ecuador the government varies the date of payments for the cash transfer programs based on the last digit of the recipient’s DNI, reducing possibilities for crime. These benefits, however, may come at the price of not including the most vulnerable families in the programs.

REFORMS TO EXTEND COVERAGE

Achieving universal coverage of identity documents is particularly challenging in environments in which the percentage of hospital births is low, previous generations lack documentation, and trust in public institutions is low. The intergenerational transmission of “invisibility” presents one of the most difficult challenges to overcome, because another layer of complexity is added when parents lack documentation. Even children of undocumented parents who are born in hospitals with official witnesses present must pass through an additional bureaucratic layer, since an undocumented mother must present two witnesses of her own birth to establish maternal identity, and the witnesses themselves must possess valid identity documents. Social norms pose additional problems, as some mothers would prefer not to register their children at all rather than officially declare them fatherless. Successful campaigns to extend documentation must address cultural issues as well as legal obstacles faced by many families.

Many countries have eliminated fees for registration within a specific time period after birth, typically the first month, but direct costs pose only part of the problem. For those in rural and remote areas, journeying to the civil registry office can involve considerable indirect costs in regard to time and travel. Some countries have developed mobile units, including boats, to reach particularly remote areas. Regular visits by these units, rather than irregular campaigns, are necessary for sustained progress in reducing underregistration and maintaining up-to-date documentation for adults.

Until recently, entries into the civil registry in the region continued to be made manually in bound books that were not necessarily catalogued in any centralized system, and it was difficult to capture this information on photocopies or microfilm for use elsewhere. The challenges to modernizing civil registration in Latin America and the Caribbean are striking; in Mexico, for example, until quite recently the decentralized civil registries of the country’s thirty-two states had more than 100 different formats and procedures for registering births. With a few exceptions such as Chile and Mexico, few countries in the region have overhauled their civil registries with efficient procedures and integrated computer technology. Most countries remain far from their goals in this area, and deep institutional reform is essential to meet those goals. Efforts to improve coverage have so far largely concentrated on short-run campaigns that have failed to produce lasting results. Nonetheless, more than a few countries are moving steadily in the direction of providing unique identification numbers at birth that follow individuals across different documents and programs, complete with biometrics. Until countries universalize identification, the rules that govern social programs must carefully address the issue of underdocumentation.