US embassy cable - 05ANKARA6583

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 ANKARA 006583 
 
SIPDIS 
 
TREASURY FOR PLANTIER 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: EAID, SOCI, TU 
SUBJECT:  SO FAR, SO GOOD ON US-FUNDED SOCIAL PROJECT 
 
 
1.  (U) Summary: A status check on the U.S.-funded Social 
Risk Mitigation Project (SRMP) found that the World Bank-led 
project is exceeding its goals of boosting school enrollment 
and vaccination rates.  Reaching nearly two million people, 
the program is an example of the Bank's success in helping 
the Turkish government improve living conditions among 
Turkey's large poor population.  The Bank is considering 
continuing the program beyond its 2006 expiration, perhaps 
with European Union support.  End summary. 
 
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Program's Goals Being Exceeded 
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2.  (U) In February 2005, the US Ambassador signed a $9 
million ESF grant agreement with the World Bank to be used 
to help fund the Bank's Social Risk Mitigation Project 
(SRMP), which supports and helps fund Conditional Cash 
Transfer (CCT) payments from the Turkish Social Solidarity 
Fund (SSF) to poor families.  Through this $360 million 
program, $260 million of which is funded by a World Bank 
loan, poor families receive monthly payments on the 
condition that they take their children (ages 0-6) for 
regular health checks, including the standard early- 
childhood vaccination series.  In addition, the SSF provides 
payments to poor families (mostly mothers), so long as they 
keep their children in school.  As of October 2005, the 
World Bank had disbursed $146.6 million of the planned $260 
million.  The $9 million US grant portion was fully 
disbursed by the Bank to the SSF in September. 
 
3.  (SBU) Checking in on the project with John Innes, who 
oversees social sector projects in the World Bank's Ankara 
office, we were told that 1.9 million Turks have so far 
benefited from the CCT program, a whopping 46% above the 
original target.  The program reaches the poorest 9% of the 
Turkish population versus an initial target of 6%.  Innes 
noted that the original financial eligibility cut-off was 
set too low but that the Bank is pleased to have reached a 
larger population of low-income people.  He said that the 
program will continue with or without government financing 
and that the Bank hopes to see the number of beneficiaries 
increase to 2 million. 
 
4.  (U) In a separate meeting, the SSF, the Turkish 
government agency that implements the project, concurred 
that the impacts of the CCT include an increase in school 
attendance rates, visits to health clinics, and the 
registration of births and marriages.  In the longer term, 
the SSF expects to see an increase in schooling and literacy 
rates (especially among girls), an increase in secondary 
school attendance rates, and a decrease in childhood 
mortality rates. 
 
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Evaluation and Criticism 
------------------------ 
 
5.  (SBU) The World Bank competitively awarded a contract to 
the International Food Policy Research Institution (IFPRI) 
to perform a qualitative and a quantitative evaluation of 
the CCT program.  While the final report is not expected 
until late 2006, preliminary results are already coming in 
from the qualitative part of the assessment.   According to 
Innes, IFPRI found the CCT program to have a positive impact 
on family consumption and on women.  They found no 
indication of discrimination on ethnic or religious grounds 
in the implementation of the program. 
 
6.  (SBU) Innes said that some local kaymakams (sub- 
provincial governors) had criticized the CCT program for its 
alleged impact on fertility decisions.  They claim that the 
program is undermining family planning and giving women an 
incentive to have more children in order to get more money. 
Innes felt that there is an ethnic overtone to these 
criticisms, in that the comments may reflect attitudes 
toward the mostly Kurdish, low-income population that 
benefits from the program. Innes countered this criticism, 
noting that the most important variable in family size is 
girls' education, especially secondary education.  The 
higher a woman's education level is, the fewer children she 
is likely to have. 
 
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Other Key Components to the SRMP 
-------------------------------- 
 
7.  (U) Another key component of the SRMP is the Local 
Initiatives (LI) program, which gives 0% interest loans to 
promote self-employment among low-income groups.  As of 
October 2005, the Bank had already committed $100 million to 
the program, and 5156 projects have been approved.  The 
goals of the LI projects include income generation, 
employability training, temporary employment, and the 
establishment and improvement of social services and 
infrastructure.  The emphasis is on women, women's 
employment, rural non-farm income development, and youth 
inclusion.  There is anecdotal evidence that the LI are 
meeting their goals of creating employment-generating 
opportunities for lower income families and are particularly 
well-received by the local communities. 
 
8.  (U) As a tie-in to the CCT education program, LI also 
includes a project called "My Beautiful School."   As the 
Ministry of National Education does not rehabilitate 
schools, this program allocates approximately $9 million for 
the restoration of 780 schools.  The SSF, in conjunction 
with the provincial and sub-provincial directorates of 
National Education, selected the schools to be 
rehabilitated.  The Bank estimates that one million primary 
and secondary school students will benefit from these 
upgrades. 
 
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Comment 
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9. (SBU) Broadening access to health and education will be 
the key to Turkey closing the gap in living standards with 
the EU.  Though final results of the evaluation will provide 
fuller information and analysis, initial indications are 
that the SRMP project has made a difference in improving 
school enrollment and health indicators for low-income 
Turks.  Though the project is scheduled to exhaust its 
current World Bank financing package in 2006, the EU and the 
European Investment Bank are interested in providing 
additional financing and the project is likely to continue. 
A recent Economist editorial praised this kind of 
conditional cash transfer project in Latin America, and we 
believe this project has been equally successful in Turkey. 
 
McEldowney