A working paper summarizing the experiences of conditional cash transfer programs in Latin America, focusing on their challenges and options to improve them.

Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs have become in many countries the largest social program and the framework upon which a social protection network is being built. These programs have more than 24 million beneficiaries in the Latin America and the Caribbean region and have been subject to many types of evaluations showing them to be an effective means of increasing demand for health and education services. This study analyzes Familias en Accion, the national CCT program in Colombia.

This document measures access and use of financial services making use of information from household surveys in Latin America and the Caribbean

The objective of the document is to asses the level of interaction of the Bono de Desarrollo Humano benficiaries in Quito with the financial sector. Specifically the study tries to understand different aspects related to the use of electronic cards to pay the BDH transfers and the wellbeing on beneficiaries.

The introduction of mandatory health insurance in developing countries is often questioned because of the difficulties in enrolling self-employed workers, who represent a segment of the labor force that is increasing in size. Partial population coverage, coupled with adverse selection effects, raises serious concerns about the financial viability of social health insurance schemes.

Through this review we have sought to further understanding of the state of preprimary, primary, and secondary numeracy education in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Research on the opportunities available to students in the region presents a troubling picture. Young people are not being properly prepared for the numeracy requirements of an increasingly interconnected world economy. Culprits include weak curricula, inadequate learning materials, and teachers¿ lack of proficiency in mathematics and the natural sciences.

Our interest in understanding the determinants of adolescent childbearing and how adolescent childbearing influences educational trajectories derive from a concern about the inverse relationship between educational outcomes and adolescent fertility. Through in-depth interviews with 118 women, we contrast the educational trajectories of adolescent and adult childbearers in urban neighborhoods in Paraguay and Peru. The findings suggest that adolescents who face obstacles that discourage academic achievement and high aspirations in life are also more likely to bear children.

Incorporation of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) into areas of education is no longer optional. Countries, regions and schools are driven to develop new initiatives that take into consideration the incorporation of these tools into teaching and learning processes, so that education systems can connect the society¿s new demands for knowledge with the new characteristics of the learners who are part of these systems.

This report focuses on the determinants of the first type of research output: new knowledge. There are no direct measures of this type of research output, but several proxies have been typically used. The two most important ones that we will apply during the study are (a) publications and (b) citations. The source of these two variables is the Reuters-Thomson ISI(R) National Science Indicators (2008) database on published papers and citations.