Roy, Shalini

Hidrobo, Melissa

Huybregts, Lieven

Karachiwalla, Naureen

Despite falling rates of poverty and child undernutrition in Africa over the last two decades, the absolute number of people living in poverty and the absolute number of undernourished children continue to rise due to population growth (Beegle et al., 2018; Black et al., 2013). Global evidence suggests that cash transfer programs can reduce poverty and food insecurity and can build resilience for the poor. When cash transfer programs are com-bined with nutrition interventions, they also have the potential to accelerate improvements in child nutrition, especially when targeted to the critical window of opportunity for nutrition, the first one thousand days of a child’s life (Ruel et al., 2013). In West Africa, many cash transfer programs are combined with accompanying measures such as promotion sessions that aim to improve knowledge and increase adoption of recommended behaviors—including those related to child nutrition (Beegle et al., 2018, see Box 1). However, the extent to which such multi-component programs lead to changes in behavior and improve-ments in outcomes related to children’s nutrition and health is still not well-understood.

Multi-component cash transfer programs: Evidence from Mali’s social safety net program (Jigisémèjiri)

de Brauw, Alan

Gilligan, Daniel O.

Hoddinott, John F.

We estimate the impact of Bolsa Família on a range of education outcomes, including school participation, grade progression, grade repetition, and dropout rates. Using a large-sample household panel survey from 20052009 collected for this evaluation, we develop a statistically balanced comparison group of eligible nonparticipant households and estimate impacts using propensity-score-weighted regression. We estimate that Bolsa Família increased average school participation among all children age 6 to 17 years by (a weakly significant) 4.5 percent. It had no effect on grade promotion, on average. However, within the subsample of girls, Bolsa Família caused substantial improvements in schooling outcomes, including significant increases in school participation (8.2 percent) and rates of grade progression (10.4 percent). We show that the gains in girls schooling do not derive from catch-up effects, but rather increase girls existing advantage in schooling attainment. In general, impacts are larger among older children, in rural areas, and in the Northeast.

Girls Advantage Increases and Older Children Gain

The Impact of Bolsa Família on Schooling

Roy, Shalini

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