Evidence from a cash transfer project in Niger

Last updated:

18 May 2018

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Institute for Global Health, University College London

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Unconditional cash transfers (UCTs) are used as a humanitarian intervention to prevent acute malnutrition, despite a lack of evidence about their effectiveness.

Women from the district livelihoods group. Concern has been supporting the group with conservation agriculture techniques and have been giving some of the community cash transfers during the time when they have no harvest from the land. Commune de Bambaye, Tahoua, Niger. Photo: Jennifer Nolan/Concern Worldwide.

In Niger, UCTs and supplementary feeding are given during the June–September “lean season,” although admissions of malnourished children to feeding programmes may rise from March/April. This study hypothesised that earlier initiation of the UCT would reduce the prevalence of global acute malnutrition (GAM) in children 6-59 months old in programme participant households and at the population level.

Although the study observed a temporary increase in food security for programme participants in the pre-lean season, there was no evidence that starting the UCT 2 months earlier and providing the same amount of cash over a longer period, together with 4 months of supplementary feeding, would be beneficial to children's nutritional status. There is already evidence that cash usually needs to be combined with complementary interventions to impact on nutrition.

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Published: 1 January 1970

This publication covers aid activities implemented with the financial assistance of several donors, including DFID, WFP and ECHO. The ideas, opinions and comments herein are entirely the responsibility of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent or reflect the policies of any donors.