Amber Peterman discusses how social cash transfers can empower women in Africa

1. unite for
children
What a little cash can do: Gender
in the Transfer Project
Amber Peterman, Social Policy Specialist, Innocenti
On behalf of the Innocenti Transfer Project team:
Ashu Handa, Tia Palermo, Jacobus de Hoop, Lisa Hjelm, Leah Principe,
Richard de Groot, Audrey Pereira, Luisa Natali, Frank Otchere & Michelle Mills
March 10th, 2016: University of Zurich

2. 2
The rise of ‘cash’ in sub-Saharan Africa . . .
• Explosion of Social Cash Transfers (SCTs):
 718 million people enrolled in SCTs globally (Honorati et al. 2015)
 Approximately half (21) SSA countries had an unconditional
cash transfer (UCT) in 2010 -- this doubled (40) by 2014
• Programs are ‘home-grown’:
 Target on poverty and vulnerability; greater role of community
 Unconditional or ‘soft conditions’
 Larger evidence base on impacts than any other region: more
countries, more topics

3. 3
Coverage of select Government programs
64000 69000 80000
150000 163000 170000 182000 190000
250000
310000
455000
1100000
1125000
0
200000
400000
600000
800000
1000000
1200000
 Not included (due to scale): CSG in South Africa (>11 million recipients)

4. 4
Cash transfers: What’s gender got to do with it?
1. Programs often target women as a means to achieve positive
outcomes (particularly for children) – women are perceived as
spending cash in a more ‘family friendly’ way
 We agree, however literature supporting this claim is dated, taken mostly
from studies on intra-household consumption/expenditure – rather than
gender-randomized experiments of SCTs
 Where rigorous studies of SCTs exist, findings are mixed (Yoong et al. 2012)
2. Programs often assume that under conditions of (1), STCs will
‘empower’ women beneficiaries
 We see large potential in this possibility – but current evidence is mixed
 Part of the lack of consensus stems from multitude of indicators utilized,
as well as large variation in gendered context which plays a critical role in
conclusions

5. 5
Review: Programming and impacts on
women’s empowerment in LMIC
• “While many development initiatives seem to target women specifically,
or have women’s empowerment as one of their objectives, no sufficient
body of evidence overwhelmingly points to success … (p. 29, van den Bold
et al. 2013)”
Intervention
Quantitative
evidence
Qualitative
evidence
Conditional cash transfers (CCTs) +/- +
Unconditional cash transfers (UCTs) +/- More needed
Micro-finance +/- +/-
Agricultural interventions
+/- More
needed
+/- More
needed

6. 6
But still. . . cash inflow (labor force participation)
lower in all parts of the world for females
 Is there a role for STCs to change to whom and how resources
accrue—and are invested—at the margin for poor households?
Source: World Bank World Development Indicators: http://tinyurl.com/hvtuomk

7. 7
The Transfer Project
• Who: Community of research, donor and implementing partners –
focus on coordination in efforts and uptake of results
 UNICEF, FAO, UNC, Save the Children, National Governments
• Mission: Provide rigorous evidence on of government-run large-scale
(largely unconditional) SCTs
• Motivation:
 Income poverty has highly damaging impacts on human
development
 Cash empowers people living in poverty to make their own
decisions on how to improve their lives
• Where: Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, South Africa,
Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe

8. 8
The (Innocenti) Transfer Project Team
Amber Peterman
[Gender/youth]
Jacob de Hoop
[Education/child
labor]
Sudhanshu (Ashu)
Handa
[Basically everything]
Lisa Hjelm
[Food security/
poverty & stress]
Tia Palermo
[Gender/youth]
Michelle Mills
[Research
dissemination]
Luisa Natali
[Zambia/labor]
Leah Principe
[Zambia/ECD]
Audrey Pereira
[violence/
maternal health]
Richard de Groot
[Education &
nutrition/Ghana]
** Missing in action: Frank Otchere
[Resilience/poverty]

9. 9
Gender in the Transfer Project
1. Targeting (who gets benefits)
2. Program moderators (explaining heterogenous impacts)
3. Program impacts (how program impacts intra-household indicators,
both for adults and for youth – boys/girls).
Outline for remaining presentation:
1. Quick overview (and gender targeting)
2. Case study on Zambia’s Child Grant Programme (CGP) and
women’s empowerment
3. Few examples from youth/other gendered analyses
4. So what? and where to next?

10. 10
Overview of programs & evaluations
• All programs unconditional, with exception of Tanzania (schooling, health)
• Longitudinal qualitative studies in Ghana, Malawi, Tanzania, Zimbabwe
Country (program)
Targeting
(in addition to poverty,
ultra-poor)
Transfer size (%
of baseline
consumption)
Methodology
Years of data
collection
Ghana (LEAP)
Elderly, disabled or
OVC
~7 Longitudinal PSM 2010, 2012
Ghana (LEAP 1000)
Pregnant women,
child<2
16 RDD 2015, 2017
Kenya (CT-OVC) OVC 22 RCT 2007, 2009, 2011
Malawi (SCTP) Labour-constrained 18 RCT 2011, 2013, 2015
Tanzania (PSSN) Food poor ~ RCT 2015, 2017
Zambia (CGP) Child 0-5 27 RCT
2010, 2012, 2013,
2014
Zambia (MCTG)
Female, elderly,
disabled, OVC
21 RCT 2011, 2013, 2014
Zimbabwe (HSCT)
Food poor, labour-
constrained
20
Longitudinal matched
case-control
2013, 2014, 2016

11. 11
Program
Female
beneficiaries
(%)
Female-
headed
households
(%)
Ghana LEAP 44 60
Ghana LEAP 1000 100 11
Kenya CT-OVC 85 85
Malawi SCTP 84 84
Zambia CGP 99 -
Zambia MCT 75 -
Zimbabwe HSCT 68 68
And three of five beneficiary
HH are female-headed
Overall, approximately
two-thirds of beneficiaries
are female
Figures for female-headed households may reflect evaluation sample,
rather than beneficiary sample. Zambia studies did not collect information
on headship.
Gender targeting

12. 12
Zambia Child Grant Programme (CGP)
• Implemented by the Ministry of Community Development and
Social Services (MCDSS) starting in 2010
• Geographically targeted to households with child under 5 years
in three districts (Kalabo, Shangombo, and Kaputa)
• Unconditional transfer: 60 Kwacha per month (12 USD) per
household
• Six stated program goals: 1) income, 2) food security, 3)
productive assets, 4) reduce child malnutrition, 3) primary
school enrollment and attendance, 6) reduce under 5 child
mortality and morbidity

13. 13
Evaluation design
• Randomized Control Trial with 90 clusters (45 treatment, 45
control)
• Baseline (2010), 24-month (2012), 36-month (2013) and 48-
month (2014)
• Baseline sample: 2,500 households
• Attrition low over panel period – and not differential (2-9%)
• Good baseline balance in outcomes and background
characteristics
• Difference-in-Difference/ANCOVA models, clustering SE
• Adjusted models control for: women’s age, highest grade
completed, marital status, household demographics, vector of
community-level characteristics and district fixed effects.

14. 14
Total consumption pc
Food consumption pc
Non-food consumption pc
Food security scale (HFIAS)
Does not worry about food
Does not go to sleep hungry at night
Does not go whole day w/o eating
Domestic asset index
Livestock index
Productive asset index
Does not consider hh very poor
Hh better off compared to 12 months ago
Life will be better in the future (women only)
Shoes
Two sets of clothes
Blanket
Currently enrolled
Days in attendance prior week
Not stunted
Not wasted
Not underweight
Consumption
Food security
Assets
Relative Poverty
Material needs (children 5-17)
Schooling (children 11-17)
Nutrition (Young children 0-59m)
-.2 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1 1.2
Effect size in SDs of the control group
Intent-to-Treat effects (CGP, 48-months)

15. 15
Impact on intra-household decision-making
• Question: “Who in your household
typically decides XX”
• Code indicator = 1 if women reports
sole and/or joint decision-making
• Impacts on 5 out of 9 domains –
child schooling, own income,
partners income, children’s cloths
and shoes, family visits
• No impact on child health, major or
daily purchases and own health
• BUT total is qualitatively small (0.34
additional decisions)
Source: Bonilla et al. 2016
6.96
6.34
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Count of sole/joint decisions
Treat Control
0.34 impact***
Note: Results from adjusted ANCOVA OLS models
*10% significance, **5% significance; ***1%
significance.

16. 16
Qualitative findings support the story
• CGP has not led to massive change in relations or dynamics:
 “Even in the laws of Zambia, a woman is like a steering wheel,
and us (the men) are the ones to drive them in everything.” ~Male,
age 53 (beneficiary)
• Yet, there is subtle change: transfer income is under control of
women, and women equate empowerment = financial standing:
 “I am very happy because I don’t have to wait for him to make
enough money as he puts it. I am able to suggest anything for the
children now. He is in charge, but at least the money is in my
hands.” ~Female, married, age 24 (beneficiary)

17. 17
Examining financial standing directly?:
Savings and non-farm enterprises (NFE)
 Evidence from LAC of CCTs on savings/investment mixed
 Evidence on UCTs in SSA scant, but promising
 Micro-credit and other savings programs have not delivered
impacts as strongly as previously assumed – special issue of
AEJ: Applied (Banerjee et al. 2015)
Measures:
• Savings: if woman is currently saving in cash
• Non-farm enterprises: if the household has operated any
non-farm enterprises (NFE) or provided any services
(store, transport, home brewing, trade, or others) in the
last 12 months

18. 18
47%
36%
47%
45%
22% 23%
30% 31%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
50%
Any savings (24-
months)
Any savings (36-
months)
Operates NFE (24-
months)
Operates NFE (36-
months)
Treat Control
10 pp impact**
23 pp impact**
Impacts on saving and small businesses
17 pp impact**
15 pp impact**
 Impacts greater for women with low (below-the-mean) decision-making at baseline
 Increase in savings does not seem to crowd out other forms of household savings
(livestock, assets)
Source: Natali et al. 2016
Note: Results from multivariate adjusted models difference-in-difference LPM
*10% significance, **5% significance; ***1% significance.

19. 19
So has the CGP ‘empowered’ women?
 Yes, women have more capital
(cash) in their control – and are
using it for income generation
 However, few meaningful
impacts on classic ‘bargaining
power’ measures (decision-
making)
 Entrenched gender norms limit
transformative shifts (even in
medium term – 4 years)
 Important, as CGP had no
specific gender components
(beyond targeting)Zambia, credit: Amber Peterman

20. 20
• Interviewer: “What does it mean to you to be empowered? For
example, if you were to describe a woman in your community who is
empowered, what would she be like?”
• Respondent: “Yes, there is a certain woman called Mary. She buys
fish and sells . . . before that she never used to do anything. She was
also receiving the CWAC money. Her husband had two wives . . .he
never paid attention to the CWAC money. She saved some money
and started buying fish and give her friends to sell for her in Mansa.
She was giving her friends because she didn’t have enough money
for transport costs. . . she made some good money and started going
to sell herself. She has changed; her children look very clean and
they eat well. She buys new clothes for herself and she looks nice.”
~female beneficiary (Kaputa district)
In their own words. . .

21. 21
Myth busting: No fertility incentives!
-60
-40
-20
0
20
40
60
80
All Girls Boys All Girls Boys All Girls Boys
Zambia CGP 48 Months Malawi SCTP Kenya CT-OVC
2.3
0.0 4.0
18.0 4.7
20.4
5.5
-9.8 -5.1
 Difference-in-differences estimates show no impact on total number of
children 0-1 years old living in treatment households (as compared to
controls)
Source: Palermo et a. 2015

22. 22
Malawi, credit: Angeli Kirk
Safe transitions to adulthood
Youth modules
 Age 13 – 28 (varies)
 Administered through 1-1 same sex
interviews in privacy
 Kenya, Malawi, Zambia MCTG,
Tanzania, Zimbabwe
Innovative content
 Mental health, hope, aspirations
 Sexual behavior, HIV risk, partner
characteristics, transactional sex
 Violence (physical, sexual)
 Patience, risk preference, logical
reasoning
 Fertility, marriage, schooling, labor
and health (HH survey)

23. 23
36%
27%
17%
11%
44%
32%
28%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
50%
Kenya (N=1,443) Malawi (N=1684) Zimbabwe (N=787) South Africa, girls (N =
440)
Treat Control
-6 pp impact**
-7 pp impact**
Note: Results from multivariate adjusted models (ages of youth vary by country),
Kenya results (Handa et al. 2014), SA results using dosage models, mean is overall sample (Heinrich et al. 2015)
*10% significance, **5% significance; ***1% significance.
-13 pp
impact***
 Kenya and Zimbabwe impacts driven by girls, Malawi driven by boys. Zambia no impacts!
-11 pp
impact***
Impacts on sexual debut among youth

24. 24
Conclusions and what’s next?
• SCTs have potential for positive gendered impacts – both on women
(particularly economic outcomes) and for girls (safe transitions,
schooling)
• Cross-country comparison among multiple settings in SSA allows a
more comprehensive picture (across outcomes and program design)
• Working with Government large-scale programs adds to external
validity of findings
• Much more work is needed!
• Still no consensus on how to measure or in what contexts cash can
‘empower women/girls’ (we can help here)
• Missed opportunity?: UNICEF engaged in >100 countries on social
protection systems – including cash transfers
• Next frontier: Cash ‘plus’ programming (ex. Pilot in Tanzania)

25. 25
• Transfer Project website: www.cpc.unc.edu/projects/transfer
• Briefs: http://www.cpc.unc.edu/projects/transfer/publications/briefs
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TransferProject
• Twitter: @TransferProjct
• Email: Amber Peterman, apeterman@unicef.org
For more information
Ghana LEAP 1000, credit: Ricardo Pires

26. 26
Transfer Project is a multi-organizational initiative of the United Nations Children’s Fund
(UNICEF) the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Save the Children-United
Kingdom (SC-UK), and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) in
collaboration with national governments, and other national and international researchers.
Current core funding for the Transfer Project comes from the Swedish International
Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), as well as from staff time provided by UNICEF,
FAO, SC-UK and UNC-CH. Evaluation design, implementations and analysis are all funded
in country by government and development partners. Top-up funds for extra survey rounds
have been provided by: 3IE - International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (Ghana, Malawi,
Zimbabwe); DFID - UK Department of International Development (Ghana, Lesotho,
Ethiopia, Malawi, Kenya, Zambia, Zimbabwe); EU - European Union (Lesotho, Malawi,
Zimbabwe); Irish Aid (Malawi, Zambia); KfW Development Bank (Malawi); NIH - The United
States National Institute of Health (Kenya); Sida (Zimbabwe); and the SDC - Swiss
Development Cooperation (Zimbabwe); USAID – United States Agency for International
Development (Ghana, Malawi); US Department of Labor (Malawi, Zambia). The body of
research here has benefited from the intellectual input of a large number of individuals. For
full research teams by country, see: https://transfer.cpc.unc.edu/
Acknowledgements

27. 27
• Banerjee et al. (2015). Six Randomized Evaluations of Microcredit: Introduction and Further Steps.
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 7(1): 1-21.
• Bonilla et al. (2016). Cash for Women’s Empowerment? A Mixed-Methods Evaluation of the
Government of Zambia’s Child Grant Program. Innocenti Working Paper 2016-01.
• Handa et al. (2014). "The Government of Kenya's Cash Transfer Program Reduces the Risk of
Sexual Debut among Young People Age 15-25." PloS one 9(1):e85473.
• Honorati et al. 2015. The state of social safety nets 2015. Washington, D.C. World Bank Group.
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2015/07/24741765/state-social-safety-nets-2015.
• Heinrich et al. (2015). Reducing Adolescent Risky Behaviors in a High-Risk Context: The Effects of
Unconditional Cash Transfers in South Africa. Working paper.
• Natali et al. (2016). Making Money Work: Unconditional cash transfers allow women to save and
re-invest in rural Zambia. Innocenti Working Paper 2016-02.
• Palermo et al. (2015). Unconditional Government Social Cash Transfer in Africa does not increase
Fertility. Innocenti Working Paper 2015-09.
• Van den Bold et al. (2013). Women’s empowerment and nutrition: An evidence review. IFPRI
Discussion Paper 01294. Washington DC.: International Food Policy Research Institute.
• Yoong et al. (2012). The impact of economic resource transfers to women versus men: A
systematic review (Technical report). London, UK: EPPI-Centre, Social Science Research Unit,
Institute of Education, University of London.
Works cited