Tia Palermo presents to Sida on findings from the Transfer Project on social cash transfers in Africa

1. unite for
children
The Transfer Project: Findings from Social Cash
Transfer Programmes in sub-Saharan Africa on
Gender, Resiliency, and Spillover Effects
Tia Palermo, Ph.D.
UNICEF Office of Research—Innocenti
On Behalf of the Innocenti Transfer Project Team:
Amber Peterman, Jacob de Hoop, Richard de Groot, Leah Prencipe,
Michelle Mills, Audrey Pereira, Luisa Natali, Naomi Neijhoft, Valeria Groppo
Sida
Stockholm
December 14, 2016

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Seminar overview
 Transfer Project description
 Gender
 Resiliency
 Multiplier effects (spillovers)

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Source: Cirillo & Tebaldi 2016 (Social Protection in Africa: Inventory of Non-Contributory Programmes): www.ipc-
undp.org/pub/eng/Social_Protection_in_Africa.pdf
Rise of social protection in Africa:
Non-contributory Gov’t programming triples over last 15 years

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The big picture:
Gov’t cash
transfer
programs in
sub-Saharan
Africa
4
No Cash Transfers
After 2004
Prior to 2004
No data
Transfer Project

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 Programs tend to be unconditional (or with ‘soft’ conditions)
 Targeting is based on poverty and vulnerability (OVC, labor-
constraints, elderly)
 Important community involvement in targeting process
 Payments tend to be manual (‘pulling’ beneficiaries to pay-points)
 Opportunity to deliver complementary services
Key features of the African ‘Model’

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 A number of fledgling government programs and growing
practice in SSA on cash transfers (2008)
 Some with plans for scaling up
 Most with models that were different from the well-known Latin
American programs
 Little evidence from SSA
 A few programmes rolling out quantitative evaluations
 Others with evaluations but not rigorous methodology
 limited documentation and sharing on lessons, experience and impact
evaluation
 Transfer Project: Responding to high demand for evidence to:
1) answer policy and program questions and
2) to influence and inform scale-up
In the beginning…

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Transfer Project: Partners & motivation
 Created 2009 as an Institutional Partnership between FAO,
UNICEF, Save the Children, University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill
 Originally 6 countries, but expanded given high demand
 Currently: Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi,
Madagascar, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe
 Working in close collaboration with national counterparts,
including national governments and research institutions
 In 2010, Protection to Production (PtoP) began to evaluate the
economic and productive impacts, under the umbrella of the
Transfer Project, “piggy-backing” model

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Transfer Project objectives
1. Provide evidence on the effectiveness of social cash
transfer programs in achieving impacts for children and
households
2. Inform the development and design of social cash
transfer policy and programs
3. Promote learning across the continent on the design
and implementation of social cash transfer evaluations
and research

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Overview of Transfer Project prog’s & evaluations
Country
(program)
Targeting
(in addition to
poverty)
Sample
size
(HH)
Methodology LEWIE Youth
Years of data
collection
Ghana (LEAP)
Elderly, disabled or
OVC
1,614 Longitudinal PSM X 2010, 2012, 2016
Ghana (LEAP
1000)
Pregnant women,
child<2
2,500 RDD 2015, 2017
Ethiopia (SCTP) Labour-constrained 3,351 Longitudinal PSM X 2012, 2013, 2014
Kenya (CT-OVC) OVC 1,913 RCT X X 2007, 2009, 2011
Lesotho (CGP) OVC 1,486 RCT X 2011, 2013
Malawi (SCTP) Labour-constrained 3,500 RCT X X 2011, 2013, 2015
South Africa (CSG) Child <18 2,964 Longitudinal PSM X 2010, 2011
Tanzania (PSSN) Food poor 801 RCT X 2015, 2017
Zambia (CGP) Child 0-5 2,519 RCT
X 2010, 2012, 2013,
2014
Zambia (MCTG)
Female, elderly,
disabled, OVC
3,078 RCT X 2011, 2013, 2014
Zimbabwe (HSCT)
Food poor, labour-
constrained
3,063
Longitudinal
matched case-
control
X X 2013, 2014, 2017

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CashTransfer
Mediators
• Future expectations
• Attitudes towards risk
• Information
Household
Consumption
• Food Security
• Material well-being
Investment
• Crop production
• Livestock
• Assets
Time-use
• Use of services
• Caring practices
• Labor
Income
Income
Young Child
• Nutrition
• Illness
Older Child
• Schooling
• Material well-
being
• Work
• HIV risk
• Mental health
Adult Care-giver
• Self-assessed
welfare
• Health
• Distance/quality of facilities
• Prices
• Shocks
• Infrastructure
Moderators • Services
• Norms
Level 2
How do cash transfers affect household
members?
Level 1

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Total consumption pc
Food security scale (HFIAS)
Overall asset index
Relative poverty index
Incomes & Revenues index
Finance & Debt index
Material needs index (5-17)
Schooling index (11-17)
Anthropometric index (0-59m)
-.2 0 .2 .4 .6 .8
Effect size in SDs of control group
36-month results at a glance
Broad Impacts from two Zambian programsMCP
CGP
Source: Handa et al. (2016). Can Unconditional Cash Transfers
Lead to Sustainable Poverty Reduction? Working Paper.

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Gender
©FAO/Ivan Grifi

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Cash transfers: What’s gender got to do with it?
1. Programs often target women as a means to achieve positive
outcomes (particularly for children) -- women are perceived as
spending cash in a more ‘family responsive’ way
 Literature supporting this claim is dated, taken mostly from studies on
intra-household consumption/expenditure – rather than gender-
randomized experiments
 Where rigorous studies exist, findings are mixed (Yoong et al. 2012)
2. Under conditions of (1), it is assumed programs will ‘empower’
women beneficiaries
 We see large potential in this possibility – but current evidence is mixed
 Part of the lack of consensus stems from multitude of indicators utilized,
as well as large variation in gendered context which plays a critical role in
conclusions
Source: Yoong et al. (2012). The impact of economic resource transfers to women versus men: A
systematic review (Technical report). London, UK: EPPI-Centre, Social Science Research Unit, Institute
of Education, University of London.

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Program
Female
beneficiaries
(%)
Female-
headed
households
(%)
Ghana LEAP 44 60
Ghana LEAP 1000 100 11
Kenya CT-OVC 85 85
Malawi SCTP 84 84
Zambia CGP 99 -
Zambia MCT 75 -
Zimbabwe HSCT 68 68
And three of five beneficiary
HH are female-headed
Overall, approximately
two-thirds of beneficiaries
are female
Figures for female-headed households may reflect evaluation sample,
rather than beneficiary sample. Zambia studies did not collect information
on headship.
Gender targeting

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 Programme moderators (explaining heterogenous impacts)
 Programme impacts (how programme impacts intra-household
indicators, both for adults and for youth – boys/girls)
Mixed-methods case study on Zambia’s Child Grant Programme
(CGP) and women’s empowerment:
1. How does cash affect intra-household bargaining power (women’s
decision-making) and empowerment?
2. How does cash affect financial indicators for women (savings,
small business operation)?
Gender in the Transfer Project

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Impact on intra-household decision-making
 Question: “Who in your household
typically decides XX”
 Code indicator = 1 if women reports
sole and/or joint decision-making
 Impacts on 5 out of 9 domains – child
schooling, own income, partners
income, children’s cloths and shoes,
family visits
 No impact on child health, major or
daily purchases and own health
 BUT total is qualitatively small (0.34
additional decisions)
Source: Bonilla et al. (2016). Cash for women’s empowerment? A mixed methods
evaluation of the Zambian Child Grant Program [Innocenti Working Paper 2016-01]
6.96
6.34
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Count of sole/joint decisions
Treat Control
0.34 impact***
Note: Results from adjusted ANCOVA OLS models
*10% significance, **5% significance; ***1%
significance.

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Qualitative findings support the story
 CGP has not led to massive change in relations or dynamics:
 “Even in the laws of Zambia, a woman is like a steering wheel,
and us (the men) are the ones to drive them in everything.” ~Male,
age 53 (beneficiary)
 Yet, there is subtle change: transfer income is under control of
women, and women equate empowerment = financial standing:
 “I am very happy because I don’t have to wait for him to make
enough money as he puts it. I am able to suggest anything for the
children now. He is in charge, but at least the money is in my
hands.” ~Female, married, age 24 (beneficiary)

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47%
36%
47%
45%
22% 23%
30% 31%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
50%
Any savings (24-
months)
Any savings (36-
months)
Operates NFE (24-
months)
Operates NFE (36-
months)
Treat Control
10 pp impact**
23 pp impact**
Impacts on saving and small businesses
17 pp impact**
15 pp impact**
Source: Natali et al. (2016). Making money work: Unconditional cash transfers allow women to
save and re-invest in rural Zambia [Innocenti Working Paper 2016-02]
Note: Results from multivariate adjusted models difference-in-difference LPM
*10% significance, **5% significance; ***1% significance.

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 Interviewer: “What does it mean to you to be empowered? For
example, if you were to describe a woman in your community who is
empowered, what would she be like?”
 Respondent: “Yes, there is a certain woman called Mary. She buys
fish and sells . . . before that she never used to do anything. She was
also receiving the CWAC money. Her husband had two wives . . .he
never paid attention to the CWAC money. She saved some money
and started buying fish and give her friends to sell for her in Mansa.
She was giving her friends because she didn’t have enough money
for transport costs. . . she made some good money and started going
to sell herself. She has changed; her children look very clean and
they eat well. She buys new clothes for herself and she looks nice.”
~female beneficiary (Kaputa district)
In their own words. . .

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Social Protection & Violence
• Two review papers (childhood violence and IPV)
• Case studies (Ghana, IPV; Tanzania, violence
against female youth)
• . . . Stay tuned for more!
© Cristian Ibanez

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Resilience

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What is resiliency?
 Sida thematic working group definition: “the ability of countries,
communities and households to manage change, by maintaining or
transforming living standards in the face of shocks or stresses – such as
earthquakes, drought or violent conflict – without compromising their long-
term prospects.”
 FAO Resilience Measurement Technical Working Group: “The ability to
prevent disasters and crises as well as to anticipate, absorb, accommodate
or recover from them in a timely, efficient and sustainable manner….”
 Sida 2012 report (Christoplos et al.) recommendation: “use social
protection as a cross-cutting concept to put resilience centre stage…need
for systems in place to deal with seasonal stress and smaller crises”
Source: Christoplos I, Novaky M, Aysan Y. 2012. “Resilience, Risk and Vulnerability at
Sida.” Stockholm: Sida.

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Resiliency dimensions: mapping to surveys
FAO Resilience Index
Measurement & Analysis
(RIMA) dimension
Mapping to evaluation survey data
Income strengthening and
diversification
Sources of income: crop production, non-
farm enterprise operations
Agricultural assets Small tools, livestock
Non-agricultural assets Durable goods
Social safety nets (SSN) Access to government/NGO programs,
private transfers
Adaptive capacity (AC) Exposure to shock; coping strategies,
debt position

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Program:
Evaluation period:
Malawi SCT
12M
ZIM HSCT
12M
Zambia CGP
48M
Zambia MCT
36M
1 Non-agricultural assets Radio, mortar/pestle,
total value on all assets
— Asset index Asset index
2 Agricultural assets
Livestock
Tools
Goats, sheep,
chickens
Sickle
Goats
Sickle, yokes
Chickens, ducks,
cows
Axe, hammer, hoe
Pigs, chickens,
goats
shovels
3 Livelihoods
NFE strengthening
NFE diversification
Agricultural strengthening
Agricultural diversification
YES (assets)
MAYBE
YES
YES
—
YES
—
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
—
4. Transfers, Safety Nets
and Debt
Government
Private individuals
Less debt
YES
—
YES
YES/NO
YES
YES
YES
—
YES
YES
—
YES
5 Shocks and Coping
Coping mechanisms YES YES YES YES
Impacts on household resiliency
NFE = non-farm enterprise

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Spillover effects

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Local Economy Wide
Impact Evaluation (LEWIE)
 Estimates treatment impacts on local economies
 Outside of households directly benefiting
 Impacts on:
 Income, production, consumption decisions, access to
information, perceptions, social interactions

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LEWIE estimates
Source: Taylor E, Thome K, Filipski M. “Local Economy-Wide Impact Evaluations of Social Cash
Transfer Programmes.” In “From Evidence to Action.” Eds. Davis B, Handa S, Hypher N, Winder
Rossi N, Winters P, Yablonski J. 2016. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Conclusions and what’s next?
 Working with Government large-scale programs adds to external
validity of findings
 SCTs have strong, positive impacts on:
 women’s financial empowerment
 resiliency-related outcomes
 beyond beneficiaries
 SCTs have potential for positive gendered impacts – both on women
(particularly economic outcomes) and for girls (safe transitions,
schooling)
 Still no consensus on how to measure empowerment or in what contexts
cash can ‘empower women/girls’ (we can help here)
 Next frontier: “cash plus” programming and evaluation

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Tack
Asante
Zikomo
Grazie!
Ghana LEAP 1000
(© Michelle Mills)

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Transfer Project is a multi-organizational initiative of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) the
UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Save the Children-United Kingdom (SC-UK), and the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) in collaboration with national governments, and
other national and international researchers.
Current core funding for the Transfer Project comes from the Swedish International Development
Cooperation Agency (Sida) to UNICEF Office of Research, as well as from staff time provided by
UNICEF, FAO, SC-UK and UNC-CH. Evaluation design, implementations and analysis are all funded in
country by government and development partners. Top-up funds for extra survey rounds have been
provided by: 3IE - International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (Ghana, Malawi, Zimbabwe); DFID - UK
Department of International Development (Ghana, Lesotho, Ethiopia, Malawi, Kenya, Zambia,
Zimbabwe); EU - European Union (Lesotho, Malawi, Zimbabwe); Irish Aid (Malawi, Zambia); KfW
Development Bank (Malawi); NIH - The United States National Institute of Health (Kenya); Sida
(Zimbabwe); and the SDC - Swiss Development Cooperation (Zimbabwe); USAID – United States
Agency for International Development (Ghana, Malawi); US Department of Labor (Malawi, Zambia). The
body of research here has benefited from the intellectual input of a large number of individuals. For full
research teams by country, see: https://transfer.cpc.unc.edu/
Acknowledgements

31. 31
• Transfer Project website: www.cpc.unc.edu/projects/transfer
• Briefs:
http://www.cpc.unc.edu/projects/transfer/publications/briefs
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TransferProject
• Twitter: @TransferProjct Email: tmpalermo@unicef.org
For more information
©FAO/Ivan Grifi

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Scaled up cash transfers are affordable in SSA
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
Congo,DemocraticRepublic
Zimbabwe
Burundi
Liberia
Eritrea
Niger
Malawi
CentralAfricanRepublic
Madagascar
Mali
Togo
Guinea
SouthSudan
Mozambique
Guinea-Bissau
Comoros
Ethiopia
SierraLeone
BurkinaFaso
Uganda
Rwanda
Benin
Tanzania,UnitedRepublicof
Zambia
Côted'Ivoire
Kenya
TheGambia
Senegal
Mauritania
SaoTomeandPrincipe
Lesotho
Cameroon
Chad
Sudan
Djibouti
Nigeria
Ghana
CapeVerde
CongoBrazzaville
Swaziland
Angola
Namibia
SouthAfrica
Mauritius
Botswana
Gabon
Seychelles
EquatorialGuinea
Socialcashtransferexpenditureestimates
In % of general government total expenditure
In % of GDP
Plausible simulations show average cost
1.1% of GDP or 4.4% of spending