Introduction: Making Aid Conditional

Dominant narratives in global development locate blame for persistent poverty in households that fail to adequately invest in children’s health and education. Conditional cash transfers are the latest “development panacea.” Implemented in over fifty countries and reaching nearly half a billion people, CCTs are lauded as “efficient”: with a simple cash incentive, families meet conditions related to health care and education. Peru’s CCT Juntos intervenes in the rural Andes and Amazon regions and is considered a resounding success: 96 percent of families meet program conditions. I introduce the feminist methodology of institutional ethnography, a distinct approach to research that accounts for women’s unpaid care work and holds their well-being central to the analysis.