Can Social Protection Work in Africa? The Impact of Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme
By Guush Berhane, Daniel O. Gilligan, John Hoddinott, Neha Kumar, A. Taffesse. Economic development and cultural change, 2014
190 citations recorded by the source corpus.
This study evaluates a large social protection program in rural Ethiopia, the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP). The effectiveness of the PSNP is of interest because the program was implemented at scale in one of Africa’s poorest countries, which has limited physical and communications infrastructure and scarce administrative resources. Using longitudinal survey data collected in 2006, 2008, and 2010 at the household and locality levels, we employ an extension of the propensity score matching method to continuous treatments to estimate the impact of transfers from the PSNP and a separate program on household food security. Against the formidable background of rising food prices and widespread drought, participation in the Public Works component of the PSNP has modest effects. The PSNP reduced the length of the last hungry season by 1.29 months among households that received transfers for 5 years compared to eligible households that received almost nothing. Five years of participation raises livestock holdings by 0.38 tropical livestock units relative to receipt of payments in only 1 year. There is no evidence that the PSNP crowds out private transfers. The joint impact of access to the PSNP along with a program that helps households to increase agricultural income and build assets is even higher. Having both of these programs reduced the length of the last hungry season by 1.5 months per year and increased livestock holdings by 0.99 tropical livestock units.
Subfields: Nutrition and Dietetics, Safety Research, Soil Science
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ce8706bab629821a1a1ba9116ad4cf9c17df8117
How researchers see this paper
The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.
In Nutrition and Dietetics
In Safety Research
In Soil Science
Citations in the corpus
- The Role of Smallholder Farms in a Changing World (2020, background): “These programmes are targeted at food-insecure households, most of which engage in small-scale farming (Berhane et al. 2014), and they are designed to ensure a minimum level of food consumption, protect and build assets and assist households in boosting income generated from agricultural activities.”
- Direct and Indirect Effects of Malawi's Public Works Program on Food Security (2015, background): “A more recent study of this program found significant improvements in food security for households that participated for multiple years (Berhane et al., 2014). Relative to the MASAF PWP, Ethiopia's PSNP has a longer duration and higher-intensity transfers. Not only did the Malawian program fail to i”