Bangladesh has some social safety net programs that transfer food to the poor, some that transfer cash, and some that provide a combination of both. This study evaluates the relative impacts of food and cash transfers on food security and livelihood outcomes among the ultra poor in Bangladesh. The programs impacts are evaluated according to various measures, including how well transfers are delivered; which transfers beneficiaries prefer; how accurately the programs target the extremely poor; effects on food security, livelihoods, and women's empowerment; and cost effectiveness. The report identifies what has and has not worked in food and cash transfers and recommends ways of improving these programs. This study will be valuable to policymakers and others concerned with poverty reduction in Bangladesh and elsewhere.
The importance of children’s nutritional status for subsequent human capital formation, the limited evidence of the effectiveness of social protection interventions on child nutrition, and the absence of knowledge on the intra-household impacts of cash and food transfers or how they are shaped by complementary programming motivate this paper. We implemented two, linked randomized control trials in rural Bangladesh, with treatment arms including cash transfers, a food ration, or a mixed food and cash transfer, as well as treatments where cash and nutrition behavior change communication (BCC) or where food and nutrition BCC were provided. Only cash plus nutrition BCC had a significant impact on nutritional status, but its effect on height-forage z scores (HAZ) was large, 0.25SD. We explore the mechanisms underlying this impact. Improved diets – including increased intake of animal source foods – along with reductions in illness in the cash plus BCC treatment arm are consistent with the improvement we observe in children’s HAZ.
Many development programs that aim to alleviate poverty and improve investments in human capital consider womens empowerment a key pathway by which to achieve impact and often target women as their main beneficiaries. Despite this, womens empowerment dimensions are often not rigorously measured and are at times merely assumed. This paper starts by reflecting on the concept and measurement of womens empowerment and then reviews some of the structural interventions that aim to influence underlying gender norms in society and eradicate gender discrimination. It then proceeds to review the evidence of the impact of three types of interventionscash transfer programs, agricultural interventions, and microfinance programson womens empowerment, nutrition, or both. Qualitative evidence on conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs generally points to positive impacts on womens empowerment, although quantitative research findings are more heterogenous. CCT programs produce mixed results on long-term nutritional status, and very limited evidence exists of their impacts on micronutrient status. The little evidence available on unconditional cash transters (UCT) indicates mixed impacts on womens empowerment and positive impacts on nutrition; however, recent reviews comparing CCT and UCT programs have found little difference in terms of their effects on stunting and they have found that conditionality is less important than other factors, such as access to healthcare and child age and sex. Evidence of cash transfer program impacts depending on the gender of the transfer recipient or on the conditionality is also mixed, although CCTs with non-health conditionalities seem to have negative impacts on nutritional status. The impacts of programs based on the gender of the transfer recipient show mixed results, but almost no experimental evidence exists of testing gender-differentiated impacts of a single program. Agricultural interventionsspecifically home gardening and dairy projectsshow mixed impacts on womens empowerment measures such as time, workload, and control over income; but they demonstrate very little impact on nutrition. Implementation modalities are shown to determine differential impacts in terms of empowerment and nutrition outcomes. With regard to the impact of microfinance on womens empowerment, evidence is also mixed, although more recent reviews do not find any impact on womens empowerment. The impact of microfinance on nutritional status is mixed, with no evidence of impact on micronutrient status. Across all three types of programs (cash transfer programs, agricultural interventions, and microfinance programs), very little evidence exists on pathways of impact, and evidence is often biased toward a particular region. The paper ends with a discussion of the findings and remaining evidence gaps and an outline of recommendations for research.
This report assesses the impact of IFPRI’s social-protection research program (GRP28) from 2000 to 2012 (including its predecessor, MP18). The assessment includes an extensive review of public goods produced by the program, stakeholder perceptions of the program’s public goods and research activities, case studies (Bangladesh, London, Mexico, Rome, and Washington, DC), and policy or programming changes that resulted from IFPRI-sponsored research, capacity strengthening, and research-policy linkages between 2000 and 2012. Over 40 interviews were conducted with national stakeholders, donors, IFPRI staff, government officials, and individuals who participated in or had knowledge of IFPRI’s activities regarding social protection during this timeframe. IFPRI’s social-protection research activities conducted under the GRP28 are ongoing and extend beyond the 2012 endline of this assessment. GRP28 research activities initiated during the latter part of the 12-year timeframe (that is, in 2010, 2011, or 2012) are limited or absent from this assessment if results had not been published at the time the study was initiated early in the summer of 2014.
"This book, which examines Ethiopia's food security strategy and the safety net program from different approaches and perspectives in the context of the development of a social protection policy, is a continuation of that tradition ... Ethiopia's safety net program is one of the largest and most influential social protection schemes in Africa and, as noted by several authors in this volume, provides important lessons beyond the Ethiopian context."--Back cover.
This book takes a new approach on understanding causes of extreme poverty and promising actions to address it. Its focus is on marginality being a root cause of poverty and deprivation. “Marginality” is the position of people on the edge, preventing their access to resources, freedom of choices, and the development of capabilities. The book is research based with original empirical analyses at local, national, and local scales; book contributors are leaders in their fields and have backgrounds in different disciplines. An important message of the book is that economic and ecological approaches and institutional innovations need to be integrated to overcome marginality. The book will be a valuable source for development scholars and students, actors that design public policies, and for social innovators in the private sector and non-governmental organizations.
More children born today will survive to adulthood than at any time in history. It is now time to emphasize health and development in middle childhood and adolescence--developmental phases that are critical to health in adulthood and the next generation. Child and Adolescent Health and Development explores the benefits that accrue from sustained and targeted interventions across the first two decades of life. The volume outlines the investment case for effective, costed, and scalable interventions for low-resource settings, emphasizing the cross-sectoral role of education. This evidence base can guide policy makers in prioritizing actions to promote survival, health, cognition, and physical growth throughout childhood and adolescence.
This book assesses the status, objectives, features, performance, and financing of safety nets in Africa. It identifies how governments and donors can strengthen safety nets to protect and promote poor people. Overall safety nets are on the rise in Africa and are beginning to evolve from fragmented programs into systems.
