Families under the sun: Implications of a conditional cash transfer in Montes de María, Colombia

This paper explores the implications of a Conditional Cash Transfer policy in a Colombian region –Montes de María- that has suffered massive violence and forced displacement. On the one hand, it addresses some of the adaptations national policy makers have made to the CCT model, particularly with regards to the network of leader-mothers, meetings of care and municipal assemblies. On the other hand, it explores how these adaptations have evolved locally in Montes de María, in a context of contested legitimacy and intense government intervention seeking to secure the territory, improve governance and respond to the situation of recurrent human rights abuses.

The humanitarian catastrophe in Montes de María has made it the focus of different types of regional, national and international interventions. Stemming from different expertises and orientations, they often clash and produce unexpected results. What practices are being consolidated and what opportunities are opened with this CCT in this context?

Based on fieldwork research and ongoing conversations in the region with program functionaries, beneficiaries and leaders of social movements, supporters and detractors, this research focuses on the controversies surrounding the Colombian version of CCTs, Familias en Acción. Do conditional subsidies undermine a rights-based approach to citizenship? In the context of the quest to rebuild their lives, what do social movements in the area -heirs of a strong collective mobilization tradition- think about the subsidies given to each family individually? What is the impact of this CCT inside the household, and with regards to female participation outside of it? What is the role of CCTs in a context of high rates of unemployment that are fruit not only of the conflict but of a change in the model of rural development in Montes de María - from peasant economies to large export-oriented agribusinesses?