How do ideas travel? Gonnet and Rodríguez unpack the learning process between Chile and Paraguay around conditional cash transfers in 2003-2005. The process started by Paraguay’s appetite to better understand regional experiences with Chilean, Colombian, Brazilian, and Mexican CCTs. The Chilean model attracted particular interest, with technical assistance offered by donors and joint trainings delivered by Chilean and Paraguayan universities. The resulting Tekoporã scheme was initially met with skepticism (“cash from government”?), and event and books were launched to share international results and demonstrate that “the model is not an invention of ours”. Compared to the Chilean model, Tekoporã enriched the CCT’s psychosocial support/family dynamics component (domestic violence, alcoholism) and placed, due to more limited local implementation capacities, more emphasis on community mechanisms (e.g., Family Guides, Beneficiary Committees, and Women Mother Leaders).
From country to people’s learning: while the Ethiopia PSNP program is not explicitly designed for education, the scheme did improve such dimension. Gebremariam et al estimate that after 3 years, the PSNP increases educational aspirations by 1.05 years and actual education of children by about 0.35 years. How did it occur? By raising household incomes, the PSNP induced individuals to “feel less poor and thus to increase their educational aspirations and to invest more in education”.
… from education to health: an evaluation of the Ghana’s cash transfer LEAP 1000 (which expanded program eligibility to pregnant and lactating women) by Quinones et al found that a one-month increase in exposure to before delivery was associated with an average of 9-gram increase in birthweight and 7% reduced odds of low birthweight. The result was not mediated by factors like household food insecurity, health services, women’s agency, or antenatal care visits. Bonus: a JAMA viewpoint by Flynn et al reflects on the pathways by which cash transfers improve child health.
… and from health to nutrition: preliminary results by Herrera et al from the Caraga Region in the Philippines show that the likelihood of stunting was lower among Pantawid CCT children, with ethnicity being associated with higher odds of malnutrition.
… and from nutrition to food security! A paper by Schneider and O’Connell assesses gender disparities in the adequacy of cash and food voucher programs for Syrian refugees in Lebanon. Their results indicate that both programs produce positive results for all beneficiaries. Yet female-headed households who qualify for the additional cash transfer increase their food expenditure, which led the authors to conclude that “uniform food voucher benefit level systematically fell short in providing for their families’ nutritional needs”.
Let’s stay on humanitarian issues: during 2022, the humanitarian coordination structure in Iraq devised a phase out process in line with the transitional context. Within such framework, an interesting report by the NRC chronicles how the Cash Working Group designed a year-long exit strategy that culminated with the platform’s de-activation. Bonus on fragile states: Irhiam et al have a “sourcebook of institutional challenges and needs” for Libya.
BTW, Hirvonen’s chapter in IFPRI’s new Global Policy Report 2023 devoted to crises has a stunning graph comparing the shares of ODA allocated to humanitarian aid versus social protection (p.59), with the former being about 5 times higher than the latter!
Speaking of crises… Fernandes and Silva study the longer-run negative impacts of economic shocks on workers and firms in Brazil over 2004-17. They show that informality may provide “de facto flexibility” to cope with adversity (there is a smaller reduction of formal worker employment in localities with a higher informality rate), while unemployment insurance and Bolsa cash transfers help as shock absorbers: the programs replaced 6% of lost earnings, i.e., 4.3% was buffered by unemployment insurance and 1.7% from Bolsa Familia.
Let’s take a look at social protection for workers in non-standard and informal employment: Miti et al examine the circumstances of farmers’ cooperatives and dairy Associations in Zambia, while Uchiyama et al investigate the working conditions of Malaysian e-hailing and online food delivery drivers, two of the largest app-based gig workers’ groups in the country.
News on the environment? A Nature article by de Lange et al proposes a “conservation basic income”, a universal basic income for residents of important conservation areas. Reaching between 3 and 21% of the global population (table 1), the annual cost of the CBI would vary between $351 billion and $6.73 trillion (figure 2). See also a commentary on the proposal by Archibald and Friedman.
Finally, an event on Social Protection for Sustainable Blue Food Systems is coming up on June 8, while FAO issued a call for inputs on the realization of the Human Right to Adequate Food (open till June 23) (h/t Alejandro Grinspun).