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Cash transfers in Africa –

evidence on the impact
Experts speak (https://blogs.unicef.org/blog/category/experts-speak/)

Impact (https://blogs.unicef.org/blog/category/impact/)

By
UNICEF Connect (https://blogs.unicef.org/blog/author/unicefconnect/)
16 July 2014

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The Great Recession of 2008 prompted many traditional donor countries to cut
back foreign aid budgets. Pressure from lawmakers is now greater than ever for
aid dollars to go further, and for development programmes to prove that aid is
linked to tangible changes in the lives of children in the poorest regions of the
world. Well, it turns out that one of the most effective of all ways of changing
the lives of the poor could be handing out cash.

That’s right. For a long time now the development world has been looking into
the benefits of various methods of simply giving the poorest families cash. One
theory is that rather than investing large amounts in costly and wasteful State
bureaucracies, delivering small amounts of cash to materially deprived
households could be a much more efficient and flexible way to provide aid
directly where it is needed most. Now, especially in Africa, data is piling up
which may prove the theory right.

The UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti (http://www.unicef-irc.org/media-

centre/article/1024/) is currently supporting an in-depth, long term research
partnership to scientifically measure the impact of cash transfer programmes
across a wide stretch of sub-Saharan Africa. Using rigorous impact evaluation
standards, hard evidence is mounting up that tiny monthly cash transfers can
bring about significant improvements for children, especially in the most remote
rural communities where services are limited or non-existent.
Here is a fascinating table showing the impact of the Zambian Government’s
Child Support Grant programme – a US$12/month unconditional payment
targeting households with young children in Zambia’s three poorest districts. In
key indicators of material poverty, early child development, income generation
and agricultural productivity, significant, tangible improvements were found to
be related to cash transfers, not other factors.

Zambia is one of 13 countries involved in the Transfer Project

(http://www.cpc.unc.edu/projects/transfer) impact evaluation in sub-Saharan
Africa. There are now at least 30 social protection programmes in this region
based on long term application of cash transfer strategies. And in 19 of them
there are rigorous evaluations of the impact on the most vulnerable children
underway. When current impact evaluations are complete the world may well
look to Africa to find the most up-to-date research on the possible impact of
cash transfers.

Having first emerged in Latin America in the 1990’s, cash transfer programmes
in Africa are now sparking important social gains in food security, school
attendance and promotion of young people’s safe transition to adulthood. One
impact assessment
(http://www.unicef.org/southafrica/SAF_resources_csg2012s.pdf) of the Child
Support Grant in South Africa has shown statistically significant associations
between receipt of the grant and adolescents reduced sexual activity, reduced
pregnancy and reduced alcohol and drug use.

Research findings on cash transfers are beginning to spark talk of the

development “silver bullet.” Sudhanshu Handa, social policy expert with the
UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti, recently took part in a Washington DC
debate titled “Cash Transfers: The New Benchmark for Foreign Aid
(http://www.cgdev.org/event/cash-transfers-new-benchmark-foreign-aid)?”
where questions such as “When are cash transfers better than traditional aid?”
and “Should aid be benchmarked against the cost effectiveness of cash
transfers?” were thrashed out.
In a period of austerity cost effectiveness of development aid is more critical
than ever. The development community can now look to Africa for hard-nosed
evidence on the impact of cash transfers.

Tags:
cash transfers (https://blogs.unicef.org/blog/tag/cash-transfers/), development
(https://blogs.unicef.org/blog/tag/development/), Office of Research –
Innocenti (https://blogs.unicef.org/blog/tag/office-of-research-innocenti/),
South Africa (https://blogs.unicef.org/blog/tag/south-africa/), Zambia
(https://blogs.unicef.org/blog/tag/zambia/)

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More stories:
By
Dale Rutstein (https://blogs.unicef.org/blog/author/dalerutstein/)
18 April 2015
Are we failing adolescents? (https://blogs.unicef.org/blog/are-we-failing-
adolescents/)

By
Nikola Balvin (https://blogs.unicef.org/blog/author/nbalvin/), Sudhanshu Handa
(https://blogs.unicef.org/blog/author/shanda/)
18 December 2014
Impact evaluations reap long term benefits for children
(https://blogs.unicef.org/blog/impact-evaluations-reap-long-term-benefits-for-
children/)

See all in Experts speak (https://blogs.unicef.org/blog/category/experts-

speak/)
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