Thesis (MA)-- Stellenbosch University, 2013. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The Brazilian welfare state has developed over time in relation to national and global trends. This study analyses the creation of Latin Americas largest Conditional Cash Transfer program in relation to these trends. The thesis provides an historical overview of the creation of Conditional Cash Transfers in the country that lastly ended with Bolsa Familia. Alongside events that led to Bolsa Familia, the nation witnessed the development of social welfare initiatives as well as alternative poverty reducing programs. The study analyses this in the context of the creation of the Brazilian welfare. The question guiding the study is: Has the Bolsa Famila programme helped to reduce poverty in Brazil? It is argued that Brazil has been successful in reducing its poverty rate as a result of the programme. The study looks deeper into the structure of Bolsa Familia in order to view its results and effects both advantages and disadvantages of the programme are assessed. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die Brasiliaanse welvaart staat het in verhouding tot nasionale en internasionale tendense ontwikkel. Hierdie studie analiseer hoe Latyns-Amerika se grootste voorwaardelike kontant oordrag program in die lig van hierdie tendense ontwikkel het. Die tesis verskaf ‘n historiese oorsig tot die inwerkingstelling van voorwaardelike kontant oordrag programme en die wyse waarop dit meer spesifiek uitgeloop het op die Bolsa Familia program. Die studie is gelei deur die vraag: Het die Bolsa Familia program daartoe bygedra dat armoede in Brasilïe verminder het? Benewens die feit dat hierdie vraag positief beantwoord word, bekyk die studie in groter detail die struktuur van die program asook die program se voordele en nadele.

Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) is a social assistance program which aims for investing in human capital by enabling families under risk of poverty to send their children to school and to benefit from health services regularly. CCT aims for decreasing poverty by means of cash transfers in the short run and aims for investing in children&rsquo / s human capital by providing basic preventative health care, regular school attendance and nutrition in the long run. Under the state of these aims, beginning from 1990s, more than 20 countries in the world started their own CCT program by the mediation or leadership of World Bank. CCT program in Turkey started so as to decrease the adverse effects of economic crisis in 2001 within the Social Risk Mitigation Project which was financially supported by the World Bank loan and constituted under the Social Assistance and Solidarity Foundation. CCT program in Turkey has been adopted by poor families in recent years, and demands and overall payments within the program have been increased significantly in a consideration of years. The need for examining and predicting the increase in these demands scientifically / and considering the fact that CCT is being applied over 20 countries, and such a study being never done before made this study necessary. In this thesis study, the change of CCT applications and number of beneficiary household over time were modeled using multivariate time series models according to geographical regions. Using the vector autoregressive models with exogenous variables (VARX), the forecasts were obtained for the number of CCT applications and beneficiary households in the future.