[go: up one dir, main page]
More Web Proxy on the site http://driver.im/
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jfpoli/v36y2011i2p230-238.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The impact of the Social Cash Transfer Scheme on food security in Malawi

Author

Listed:
  • Miller, Candace M.
  • Tsoka, Maxton
  • Reichert, Kathryn
Abstract
The Malawi Social Cash Transfer Scheme (SCTS) was launched in 2006 to improve food security by directly providing cash transfers to the country's most destitute households. Although government-implemented cash transfer schemes have gained popularity throughout Latin America, these schemes are just emerging in Africa. While where there is evidence of the beneficial impact of cash transfers on food security from Latin American countries, there is a dearth of evidence from resource poor countries in Africa. In order to fill this gap, we conducted a longitudinal, randomized community control study of the pilot SCTS in Mchinji, Malawi from March 2007 to April 2008. In this study, we describe the impact of approximately US$14 per month on food security among recipient households compared to control households using indicators of food consumption and expenditures and dietary diversity. We present compelling evidence, whereby each of the tested outcomes yields large effect sizes that are highly statistically significant, demonstrating a sizeable impact of cash transfers on food security and food diversity in rural Malawi. The SCTS appears to be an effective tool within the National Social Welfare Policy for improving food security in the country's destitute households.

Suggested Citation

  • Miller, Candace M. & Tsoka, Maxton & Reichert, Kathryn, 2011. "The impact of the Social Cash Transfer Scheme on food security in Malawi," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 230-238, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jfpoli:v:36:y:2011:i:2:p:230-238
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306-9192(10)00134-X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Barrett, Christopher B., 2002. "Food security and food assistance programs," Handbook of Agricultural Economics, in: B. L. Gardner & G. C. Rausser (ed.), Handbook of Agricultural Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 40, pages 2103-2190, Elsevier.
    2. repec:bla:devpol:v:28:y:2010:i:4:p:481-502 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Ariel Fiszbein & Norbert Schady & Francisco H.G. Ferreira & Margaret Grosh & Niall Keleher & Pedro Olinto & Emmanuel Skoufias, 2009. "Conditional Cash Transfers : Reducing Present and Future Poverty," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2597.
    4. Frikkie Booysen & Servaas Van Der Berg, 2005. "The Role Of Social Grants In Mitigating The Socio‐Economic Impact Of Hiv/Aids In Two Free State Communities1," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 73(s1), pages 545-563, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ryckembusch, David & Frega, Romeo & Silva, Marcio Guilherme & Gentilini, Ugo & Sanogo, Issa & Grede, Nils & Brown, Lynn, 2013. "Enhancing Nutrition: A New Tool for Ex-Ante Comparison of Commodity-based Vouchers and Food Transfers," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 58-67.
    2. World Bank Group, 2016. "Cash Transfers in Humanitarian Contexts," World Bank Publications - Reports 24699, The World Bank Group.
    3. Tomas Artemio Marinozzi, 2021. "Allocation problems in child benefit programs using a microeconomic theory approach," CEMA Working Papers: Serie Documentos de Trabajo. 775, Universidad del CEMA.
    4. Verónica Amarante & Marco Manacorda & Edward Miguel & Andrea Vigorito, 2016. "Do Cash Transfers Improve Birth Outcomes? Evidence from Matched Vital Statistics, Program, and Social Security Data," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 8(2), pages 1-43, May.
    5. Imen Turki Abdelhedi & Sonia Zouari Zouari, 2020. "Agriculture and Food Security in North Africa: a Theoretical and Empirical Approach," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 11(1), pages 193-210, March.
    6. Genesis T. Yengoh & Frederick Ato Armah & Edward Ebo Onumah, 2010. "Paths to Attaining Food Security: The Case of Cameroon," Challenges, MDPI, vol. 1(1), pages 1-22, August.
    7. Sanchez, Alan & Jaramillo, Miguel, 2012. "Impacto del programa Juntos sobre la nutrición temprana," Revista Estudios Económicos, Banco Central de Reserva del Perú, issue 23, pages 53-66.
    8. M. Caridad Araujo & Mariano Bosch & Norbert Schady, 2017. "Can Cash Transfers Help Households Escape an Intergenerational Poverty Trap?," NBER Chapters, in: The Economics of Poverty Traps, pages 357-382, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Crespo, Cristian, 2020. "Two become one: improving the targeting of conditional cash transfers with a predictive model of school dropout," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 123139, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    10. Dirk Van de gaer & Joost Vandenbossche & José Luis Figueroa, 2014. "Children's Health Opportunities and Project Evaluation: Mexico's Oportunidades Program," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 28(2), pages 282-310.
    11. Marcelo Arbex & Enlinson Mattos, 2017. "Optimal Paternalistic Health and Human Capital Policies," Working Papers 1709, University of Windsor, Department of Economics.
    12. Costa, Lorena Vieira & Helfand, Steven M. & Souza, André Portela, 2018. "No impact of rural development policies?: no synergies with conditional cash transfers?: an investigation of the IFAD-Supported Gavião Project in Brazil," Textos para discussão 489, FGV EESP - Escola de Economia de São Paulo, Fundação Getulio Vargas (Brazil).
    13. Felipe Barrera-Osorio & Leigh L. Linden & Juan E. Saavedra, 2019. "Medium- and Long-Term Educational Consequences of Alternative Conditional Cash Transfer Designs: Experimental Evidence from Colombia," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 54-91, July.
    14. Gregory, Christian & Deb, Partha, 2016. "Who Benefits Most from SNAP?," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 236648, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    15. Gabor Kertesi & Gabor Kezdi, 2013. "The Kindergarten Attendance Allowance In Hungary - An evaluation of a conditional cash transfer program," Budapest Working Papers on the Labour Market 1314, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    16. Bergstrom, Katy & Dodds, William, 2021. "The targeting benefit of conditional cash transfers," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    17. Lara Cockx & Nathalie Francken, 2016. "Evolution and impact of EU aid for food and nutrition security: a review," Working Papers of Department of Economics, Leuven 540512, KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Department of Economics, Leuven.
    18. Chandana Maitra & Sriram Shankar & D.S. Prasada Rao, 2016. "Income Poor or Calorie Poor? Who should get the Subsidy?," Discussion Papers Series 564, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    19. Kusuma, Dian & Cohen, Jessica & McConnell, Margaret & Berman, Peter, 2016. "Can cash transfers improve determinants of maternal mortality? Evidence from the household and community programs in Indonesia," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 10-20.
    20. Jacobus de Hoop & Jed Friedman & Eeshani Kandpal & Furio C. Rosati, 2019. "Child Schooling and Child Work in the Presence of a Partial Education Subsidy," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 54(2), pages 503-531.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jfpoli:v:36:y:2011:i:2:p:230-238. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/foodpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.