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Highlights • Cash transfers increase farm production by 33.5 percent. • None of these impacts are channelled through transfer-induced changes in farm labour. • In fact, cash transfers have no significant impact on family labour supply or on demand for hired labour. • This implies that the productive impacts of cash transfers flow through other channels, different from the labour one. Abstract This paper has the double aim to study whether unconditional cash transfers have an impact on farm production and to look into the causal mechanisms through which government transfers produce productive impacts. We use mediation analysis to identify the total effect of transfers on farm production and to isolate the influence of the labour channel from other transmission channels. In particular, we analyze whether changes in farm production are caused by transfer-induced changes in the use of farm labour – either by reallocating family labour between off- and on-farm work or by changes in the demand for hired labour – or if other transmission channels are at work. We find that cash transfers have a sizable impact on farm production but they do not lead to increased use of family or hired labour on the farm, which implies that the productive impacts of cash transfers flow through other channels, different from the labour one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education emerged as a nearly uncontested development strategy to tackle several forms of social, political, economic and geographic inequalities in low- and middle-income countries. When it comes to the case of Uganda, the country represents a striking paradox. Significant investments and policy reforms in education (such as Universal Primary and Secondary Education) since 1997, did not translate into the expected results with regards to poverty reduction through human capital investment. Progress in poverty alleviation is not only stagnant but the role of education therein can be described as ‘modest’ at best. Against this backdrop, this article assesses the following research question: Why did Uganda’s investments and policy reforms in education not uplift the poor? In examining the issue, this article introduces a theoretical framework that contrasts assimilative with transformative approaches in poverty alleviation through education. A rigorous review of Uganda’s education sector plans revealed that current strategies to reduce poverty revolve around a strong assimilation-based development agenda, thereby focusing on three main areas of intervention: (a) increased access to education and retention; (b) improved quality of education; and (c) employment generation through education. The article finds that these assimilative approaches do not have an impact on the political, economic and social structures that cause poverty in the first place. Hence, it concludes that assimilative models in education are highly dependent on transformative approaches. Concretely, change cannot emerge only at the very grassroots level, i.e. through educating society at large, but also has to arise from the systemic level, i.e. government institutions at the local, national and global levels. Methodologically, the analysis draws on qualitative data that was collected in the course of two extensive field research stays in 2015 and 2017. In addition, quantitative data in the form of statistical abstracts inform the analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on an analysis of water access and supply in Cape Town (South Africa) and Accra (Ghana), we illustrate that neoliberal and human right to water-oriented transformations co-constitute each other discursively, practically, and in policy implementation. Focusing on the transfer of policies and experiences (particularly conjoined demand management-free basic water programs and related social contestation), we provide examples of how neoliberal logics and human right to water principles intersect in evolving hybrid regulatory landscapes, which are characterized by contradiction. The human right to water makes a difference by influencing the drafting and implementation of water-related policies that affect to the lives of poor and vulnerable populations. Yet this process unfolds unevenly, as human right to water principles and practices are contextually applied, often alongside neoliberalizing policy instruments within evolving regulatory landscapes. Our analysis reveals the uneven effects of policy experimentation, transfer, and adaptation. The analysis shows that the principle of the human right to water affects the transformation of policy options circulating in the water sector, but it does so in relation to the institutional histories and policy options associated with uneven patterns of variegated neoliberalization in the water sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: USDA's Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) provides expert-chosen supplemental foods to improve the diets and health of low-income infants and children <5 y of age, but dietary behaviors of WIC participants are not well characterized.Objective: The purpose of this analysis was to examine differences in food consumption patterns between WIC participants and nonparticipants.Methods: FITS 2016 is a nationwide cross-sectional study of children <4 y (n = 3235). Data were weighted to provide US population-representative results. Children were categorized as WIC participants or nonparticipants, with the latter divided into lower- and higher-income nonparticipants. Group differences were assessed via the Wald test (demographics) and Rao-Scott modified chi-square test (breastfeeding prevalence). Differences in percentage consuming WIC-provided and selected other foods between WIC participants and nonparticipants were evaluated with the use of ORs and 95% CIs.Results: WIC infants were less likely to breastfeed than were higher-income nonparticipants at 0-5.9 mo (45% compared with 74%) and less likely than both nonparticipant groups at 6-11.9 mo (30% compared with 49-60%). WIC 6- to 11.9-mo-olds were more likely to consume infant cereals and vegetables than were lower-income nonparticipants. WIC 12 to 23.9-mo-olds were more likely to drink whole milk (which WIC provides at this age) than were nonparticipants (72% compared with 59-64%), whereas WIC participants 24-47.9 mo were more likely to drink low- and nonfat milks (which WIC provides at this age) than were nonparticipants (45% compared with 13-22%). WIC participants 6-47.9 mo were more likely to drink juice than were nonparticipants.Conclusions: Continued improvements in early dietary patterns are warranted for WIC and non-WIC children. Breastfeeding among WIC participants is a continuing challenge. Findings suggest that baby-food cereals, vegetables, and fruits (all provided by WIC) contribute importantly to WIC infants' diets, whereas WIC children are more likely to use lower-fat milks after 2 y of age than are non-WIC participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With many of the poor people in Brazil living in rural areas, local governments have intensified their efforts to design and implement effective policies that boost rural development. In 2004, a national program for production and use of biodiesel was launched aiming at increasing income among less endowed family farmers across the country. With expectations building on further expansion of the mandatory blending of biodiesel with fossil diesel, national and local government bodies are challenged by the search for policies able to foster biodiesel crop production through the wider cultivation of crops that produce more oil than soybean (e.g. sunflower and castor bean) and by improving the participation of less endowed farmers, especially in semi-arid regions. Therefore, the objective of this study was to perform an ex-ante integrated assessment of the socioeconomic and environmental impacts of four biodiesel policy scenarios towards different farm types in a semi-arid and more humid region of southeast Brazil. The applied modelling framework was a combination of a technical coefficient generator (TechnoGIN) and a bio-economic farm model (FSSIM). We explored the impact of market-driven (bonus price policy), input provision (fertiliser and land preparation policy) and oil production (oil mill policy) policy scenarios on soybean farmers in Chapada Gaúcha and maize/beans farmers in Montes Claros. The impacts of the different policies on farm gross margins, oil crop production, labour requirements, nitrogen losses and biocide residues were assessed against the baseline scenario. Our results indicated that the scope for biodiesel crops on smallholder, non-soybean producers in Montes Claros is less evident than in Chapada Gaúcha, particularly among the less endowed farmers for whom the increase in farm gross margin in all scenarios is limited to only 6% while oil production was 140 kg per farm, which is very low compared to the 41% increase and more than 48,000 kg of oil of soybean producers. The most effective policy scenario was the provision of inputs such as fertiliser and land preparation. Because in Montes Claros farmers have limited access to fertiliser, machinery and biocides, strategies that enable farmers to increase their cropped area (i.e. land preparation policy more than doubled the crop area) and crop yield levels (i.e. fertiliser policy almost quadrupled crop yields) have highest potential to benefit these farming systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]