Center for Global Development’s “Global Health Policy Blog”: New Systematic Review on Cash Transfers and Contraceptive Use — Good Research and Bad Advice?
Tia Palermo, social policy specialist at UNICEF, and Amanda Glassman, chief operating officer and senior fellow at CGD, discuss the results of a recently published systematic review on cash transfer programs and their impact on family planning, writing, “We commend [the authors’] efforts to summarize this important literature and second their call for more research on the topic, however we strongly disagree with their concluding recommendation to condition transfers on having no more than two children. This undermines women’s and couples’ rights to autonomy and reproductive freedom and may translate into dangerous unintended consequences … Further, it may not make sense to condition transfers on such specific objectives. … We do, however, agree with the authors’ recommendation to simultaneously address supply factors for better outcomes” (2/14).