People disadvantaged in this case
Education and health are social rights — the main assets that compose human capital. Despite a constant commitment to building schools and health units in the most marginal areas of Mexico, children and teenagers from the poorest households continue to drop out of school at high rates. Mexico has an average primary education attendance rate of almost 97% and secondary education is close behind at 88%. However, of the poorest fifth of the population, less than 80% complete secondary school, and less than 40% attend high school (grades 10 through 12). These high dropout rates correspond with higher rates of disease and undernourishment. Despite efforts to increase supply of education, access to schooling is not guaranteed to children in this poorest sector of society. This lack of access creates a vicious cycle of poverty, as these children, who are at greater risk of nutritional and health problems in early childhood and school absenteeism later on, also have the highest probability of living below the poverty line and subsisting on precarious, low-paid employment as they grow up.

How the innovation improved access
Oportunidades (previously known as Progresa), created in 1997, delivers cash transfers to poor families in order to keep children attending school. An additional dimension of the program is its emphasis on health:  family members are also provided with the means to visit health units to get preventive care. The program alleviates poverty and improves access to basic services by contributing to the development of capacities among the poorest members of society. By creating incentives to seek health care and attend school, Oportunidades encourages its program beneficiaries to take advantage of the institutions available to support the disadvantaged in Mexico.  
Oportunidades is the largest social welfare program in Mexico, supporting 25 million persons (25% of the total population), with an annual budget of three billion U.S. dollars. Oportunidades stands as a complete innovation in social management and program design in Mexico; it has also been recognized by many international policy experts as a “best practice” to address poverty and human development.
To ensure fair distribution of resources to Mexico’s poor, Oportunidades developed a new set of practices and standards, including such diverse measures as: independent impact evaluations; an objective mechanism for targeting beneficiary families; a transparent system of benefits delivery (cash transfers) with anti-counterfeit mechanisms; a strong social audit; a participatory monitoring and evaluation system; and a policy of public access to information. 
The program goal is to help poor families improve their standard of living by linking cash transfers to youth school attendance and family health check-ups. The program is based on co-responsibility, a shared and enforceable agreement between citizens and the state in which beneficiaries commit to health and education attainment and the government guarantees timely delivery of financial aid and improved access to schools and health clinics.

Obstacles encountered
Oportunidades substitutes previous generalized and targeted food subsidies that consumed important fiscal resources. The challenges Oportunidades faces include improving quality of education and health provision in the rural and impoverished urban areas where the program concentrates its coverage. The program’s innovators have introduced strategies to fight the endemic clientelism that has characterized many Mexican social programs in the past. The dynamics of economic growth and the creation of jobs are the main challenges for the program to achieve its long term objectives.

The results of the innovation
Oportunidades has by all measures achieved its objectives. Its most important successes have been in the area of child enrollment and progress in school. Independent evaluations have shown higher rates of attendance and graduation at the primary, secondary, and high school levels, due to the intervention of Oportunidades. These results have been particularly marked in rural areas, the poorest in the country. Outside reviews have also shown promising evidence of improved health care practices and the reduction of stunting (chronic malnourishment) based on family participation and program intervention.
Results are also encouraging regarding the transparency and political impartiality of the program, although political strategists tend to include all social programs in their campaign rhetoric. Nonetheless, there is no evidence of political misuse of the Program as a general rule.  Indeed, there have been several studies from the UNDP, NGOs, and academia that have demonstrated the effectiveness of the program’s mechanisms for avoiding political bias and misuse.