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Cash transfer programmes are increasingly being utilized in order to combat poverty and hunger as well as to building the human capital of future generations. Even though most of these programmes are not explicitly designed to help households manage climate risk, there are good reasons to expect that cash transfers can be good instrument to build household resilience against climatic risk. The goal of this study is to provide an empirical analysis of the effect of weather risk on rural households’ welfare using impact evaluation data from the Zambia Child Grant Programme (CGP) together with set of novel weather variation indicators based on interpolated gridded and re-analysis weather data that capture the peculiar features of short term and long term variations in rainfall. In particular, we estimate the impact of weather shocks on a rich set of welfare and food security indicators (including total expenditure, food expenditure, non-food expenditure, calorie intake and dietary diversity) and investigate the role of cash transfer for managing climate risk. We find strong evidence that cash transfer programmes has a mitigating role against the negative effects of weather shocks. Our results in fact highlight how important the receipt of social cash transfer is for households lying in the bottom quantile of consumption and food security distributions in moderating the negative effect of weather shock. Hence, integrating climate change and social protection tools into a comprehensive poverty reduction and social protection strategy should be of primary interest for policy makers and government when setting their policy agenda.

There is promising recent evidence that poverty-targeted social cash transfers have potential to improve maternal health outcomes, however questions remain surrounding design features responsible for impacts. In addition, virtually no evidence exists from the African region. This study explores the impact of Zambia’s Child Grant Program on a range of maternal health utilization outcomes using a randomized design and difference-in-differences multivariate regression from data collected over 24 months from 2010 to 2012. Results indicate that while there are no measurable program impacts among the main sample, there are heterogeneous impacts on skilled attendance at birth among a sample of women residing in households having better access to maternal health services. The latter result is particularly interesting because of the overall low level of healthcare availability in program areas suggesting dedicated program design or matching supply-side interventions may be necessary to leverage unconditional cash transfers in similar settings to impact maternal health.

There is promising recent evidence that poverty-targeted social cash transfers have potential to improve maternal health outcomes; however, questions remain surrounding design features responsible for impacts. In addition, virtually no evidence exists from the African region. This study explores the impact of Zambia's Child Grant Program on a range of maternal health utilization outcomes using a randomized design and difference-in-differences multivariate regression from data collected over 24 months from 2010 to 2012. Results indicate that while there are no measurable program impacts among the main sample, there are heterogeneous impacts on skilled attendance at birth among a sample of women residing in households having better access to maternal health services. The latter result is particularly interesting because of the overall low level of health care availability in program areas suggesting that dedicated program design or matching supply-side interventions may be necessary to leverage unconditional cash transfers in similar settings to impact maternal health.

This paper discusses the experience of six conditional cash transfer programs in Latin America, a model of social safety nets which have grown to dominate the social protection sector in the region over the last 10 years. We find that while conditional cash transfer programs have generally been successful in terms of reaching their core objective, it is still not clear whether they constitute the most cost efficient or sustainable solution to the development bottleneck they seek to address. Further, the almost exclusive focus on human capital accumulation of children leads to missed opportunities in terms of impact on household welfare and the broader rural development context., FAO Document Repository: http://www.fao.org/3/a-ag429t.pdf

This paper examines the PROGRESA and PROCAMPO cash transfer programs in Mexico and evaluates their impact on household food security and nutrition. These two programs differ in their gender targeting, with PROGRESA aimed at women and PROCAMPO generally at men, and program conditionality, with PROGRESA linked to development of human capital of children in the households and PROCAMPO linked to agricultural production. We try to answer the following questions. First, can a cash transfer program geared to agricultural production have the same impact on food security as a cash transfer program geared to consumption through purchases? Second, do eligibility requirements (gender of the recipient) and conditionality in the provision of cash transfers matter? Our results suggest that, contrary to conventional wisdom, men do not just drink away cash transfers and that monetary payments linked to a productive asset 'land- can have as large or larger impact on food security as cash transfers not linked to a productive asset. We show that both programs boost total food consumption and caloric intake in similar proportions. However, PROCAMPO has a larger impact on meat and vegetables consumption and PROGRESA on the other food category. Furthermore, increased food security is achieved through different channels: PROGRESA through purchases while PROCAMPO through investment in home production. We also find that cash transfers linked to information on nutrition and health increase food diversity. PROCAMPO households that also receive PROGRESA, and the information that goes with it, are more likely to be eating a more varied diet than households that get PROCAMPO only. All this suggests that the choice of program design in terms of food security depends on objectives beyond total food consumption and caloric intake, such as consumption from specific food categories, food diversity, investment in agricultural production, and the degree of access to retail food markets., FAO Document Repository: http://www.fao.org/3/a-ae028t.pdf

This paper aims at evaluating the impact of two different cash transfer programs in rural Mexico - Procampo and Progresa - on total consumption, food consumption and other outcomes like investment, schooling and health care. Progresa is targeted to women, while Procampo goes to farmers, mostly men and many of which are poor. We show that both programs boost consumption. However, they obtain this effect through different channels. Progresa is destined to consumption expenditure directly, while Procampo, which is paid to landholders, boosts investments and needs time to produce its benefits. Furthermore, we separate program from gender effects and show that cash transfer programs targeted to men are beneficial only when the recipients own means of production. This suggest that policy makers should take into account the relationship between gender and ownership of assets when designing poverty reduction programs.

In this paper, we examine how the design of cash transfer schemes influences household welfare outcomes with particular reference to the influence of transfers on conditioned outcomes, such as schooling, health and investment. We do this by examining two innovative cash transfer schemes initiated by the Mexican government in the last decade: PROGRESA, which is a national antipoverty scheme directed at chronic rural poverty, and PROCAMPO, which is a scheme designed to compensate farmers for the negative price effects of NAFTA. The schemes differ in that PROGRESA is targeted at women and conditioned on schooling and health outcomes and PROCAMPO is generally targeted at men and conditioned on land use. The analysis of data collected for an evaluation of PROGRESA suggest that the overall effects of the programs, as measured by total and food consumption expenditure, are not different. However, PROGRESA leads to greater schooling expenditure and school attendance as well as increased health outcomes. On the other hand, PROCAMPO is found to lead to increased investment in agriculture. The results suggest that conditionality may have little effect in terms of short-term welfare outcomes, but do influence both longer-term (human capital) and medium term (productive) investment. Policy makers must consider both whether or not conditions should be placed on a program, and the type of condition, depending on what they perceive to be the desirables outcomes of the transfer scheme., FAO Document Repository: http://www.fao.org/3/a-ae029t.pdf

This report provides an evaluation of the community-level effects of the Programa Nacional de Educacion, Salud, y Alimentacion (PROGRESA) using household-level data from various rounds of PROGRESA’s evaluation sample (the Encuesta de Evaluacion de los Hogares [ENCEL] surveys). These surveys, along with the Encuesta de CaracterRsticas Socioecon\micas de los Hogares (ENCASEH) 1997 survey, are a valuable source of information on household- and community-level characteristics before and after the implementation of the program. Other reports in the evaluation series have focused on the direct effects of PROGRESA, using the control and treatment groups in the ENCELS. The objective of this report is slightly different, in that it explores the possible spillover effects of the program on the wider community. Hence, instead of focusing on program effects at the individual level, the study focuses on aggregate community-level indicators of well being such as poverty, inequality, and school and health care attendance rates, in order to assess the impact of PROGRESA at this level. Using the data sets mentioned above, the authors developed five indicators with which to measure the potential impact of PROGRESA at the community level: (1) changes in rates of relative poverty; (2) changes in inequality; (3) school continuation rates; (4) changes in nutrition surveillance rates; and (5) changes in prices (inflation). Exploiting the longitudinal aspect of t he evaluation data, the authors constructed “difference in differences” estimators and used regression techniques to isolate community-level program effects. The main results from this analysis are as follows. Poverty. Although relative poverty increased in the evaluation sample between March and October, the increase was significantly less in PROGRESA communities relative to control ones. For the relative poverty line set at the 25th percentile of consumption in March, the difference in changes in poverty rates was 4 percentage points between treatment and control localities. The same result is found for higher-order poverty measures (poverty gap and squared poverty gap). In all cases, the increase in poverty was significantly less in PROGRESA communities relative to non-PROGRESA localities. Inequality. The two inequality indicators used in the evaluation were the coefficient of variation and the standard deviation of the log of consumption. For both measures, there was a decline in inequality in the survey between March and October, and for both indicators, the decline was greater in PROGRESA localities relative to controls. The results are even stronger when the richest 1 percent of households is excluded from the sample. School Continuation. School continuation rates between the school years 1997/98 and 1998/99 were constructed for five age groups, and by sex and beneficiary category. Significant spillover effects appear to exist among children ages 11–12, especially girls. In other words, nonbeneficiary children in this age group living in PROGRESA communities have significantly higher continuation rates then non-beneficiary children in non-PROGRESA communities. This spillover effect is especially strong for girls, where continuation rates are almost 10 percentage points higher for non-eligible girls in PROGRESA communities relative to non-eligible girls in non-PROGRESA localities. Nutrition Surveillance Rates. Community-level nutrition surveillance rates were constructed for preschool children by beneficiary status. These data indicate important spillover effects in terms of the health care behavior of nonbeneficiary households. Estimates of mean changes in nutrition surveillance rates for preschool children show that six months after the program, there was no difference in mean changes in surveillance rates among nonprogram children in treatment and control localities. However, one year after program inception (in May 1999), the increase in mean rates of surveillance was nearly 7 percentage points higher among nonbeneficiary children in PROGRESA localities, compared to this same group in treatment localities. These results indicate not only the strong presence of possible spillover effects of PROGRESA, but also that these effects take some time to manifest themselves. Inflation. To assess whether PROGRESA is having an inflationary impact in the locality, we compare prices of 10 commodities from the ENCASEH and ENCEL98O, and 33 products from the ENCEL98M and ENCEL98O surveys. There was only one significant price increase found between ENCASEH and ENCEL98O (jitomate), and this occurred in both treatment and control localities. Seven significant prices increases were found in PROGRESA localities between the March and October ENCEL surveys, but five of these increases were also found in control localities. Multivariate analysis of difference in differences in prices also indicated no program-related inflationary pressure. On the contrary, between March and October 1998, there is evidence that mean increases in prices were actually higher in control localities relative to treatment, even after controlling for possible intervening factors such as availability of a Diconsa store, drought, and insect diseases.

The role of school quality in determining educational outcomes has received much research attention in the United States. However, in developing countries, where a significant part of the school age population never attends school, policymakers must consider both quality and quantity when deciding how to maximize the impact of scarce investments. Acknowledging this difference in the policy environment in developing countries, this paper provides comparative estimates of the impact of quality versus quantity investments in school supply in rural Mozambique, one of the world’s poorest countries. Policy simulations show that improving school quality (through the pupil-teacher ratio) increases grade attainment and efficiency by approximately 9 percent with no impact on overall enrollment rates. However, these same results can be generated by increasing starting enrollment probabilities through the establishment of new schools in all rural villages that currently do not have schools. Furthermore, similar rates of increase in school achievement indicators can be achieved by building schools in only 56 percent of all villages currently without schools, provided these schools are placed in those villages that also do not have a school nearby. When cost information is considered, the main policy implication is that the expansion of school quantity through well-targeted placement of new schools will provide the greatest increase in educational outcomes for Mozambique at this time.

The role of school quality in determining educational outcomes has received much research attention in the United States. However, in developing countries, where a significant part of the school age population never attends school, policymakers must consider both quality and quantity when deciding how to maximize the impact of scarce investments. Acknowledging this difference in the policy environment in developing countries, this paper provides comparative estimates of the impact of quality versus quantity investments in school supply in rural Mozambique, one of the world's poorest countries. Policy simulations show that improving school quality (through the pupil-teacher ratio) increases grade attainment and efficiency by approximately 9 percent with no impact on overall enrollment rates. However, these same results can be generated by increasing starting enrollment probabilities through the establishment of new schools in all rural villages that currently do not have schools. Furthermore, similar rates of increase in school achievement indicators can be achieved by building schools in only 56 percent of all villages currently without schools, provided these schools are placed in those villages that also do not have a school nearby. When cost information is considered, the main policy implication is that the expansion of school quantity through well targeted placement of new schools will provide the greatest increase in educational outcomes for Mozambique at this time.

Few policies are as universally accepted as raising primary school enrolment in developing countries, but the policy levers for achieving this goal are not straight forward. This paper merges household survey data with detailed school supply characteristics from official sources, in order to estimate the relative impact of demand- and supply-side determinants of rural primary school enrolment in Mozambique. Policy simulations based on a set of “plausible” interventions show that demand-side interventions, particularly those aimed at raising rural adult literacy, will have the biggest impact on primary school enrolment rates.

Few policies are as universally accepted as raising primary school enrollment in developing countries, but the policy levers for achieving this goal are not straight forward. This paper merges household survey data with detailed school supply characteristics from official sources, in order to estimate the relative impact of demand and supply-side determinants of rural primary school enrollment in Mozambique. Policy simulations based on a set of “plausible” interventions show that demand-side interventions, particularly those aimed at raising rural adult literacy, will have the biggest impact on primary school enrollment rates.