Publication: Evidence at your Fingertips Series: Operational and Design Choices of Social Assistance Programs
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2024-06-14
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2024-06-14
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To help policy makers make practical programmatic design choices, the “Evidence at Your Fingertips Series” explains how the design of cash transfer programs can affect outcomes. The review is largely based on impact evaluations published in the past decade. The series is launched with an initial set of five thematic briefs on benefit size, timing (frequency and duration), transfer modality (cash versus in-kind), payment mechanism (physical versus digital), and gender. While the impacts of cash transfers can vary depending on the context, this overview brief aims to present key take aways on how design features can impact cash transfer outcomes.
Evidence at Your Fingertips Series:
• Evidence Briefs on Cash Transfers: Overview and Ten Key Messages
• Cash Transfer Size: How Much Is Enough?
• Cash Transfer Timing: How Transfer Duration and Frequency Contribute to Outcomes?
• Cash Transfer Payment Mechanisms: Do Outcomes Vary According to Payment Mechanism?
• Cash or In-Kind Transfers: Do Outcomes Vary According to Transfer Modality?
• Can Safety Nets Reduce Gender-Based Violence? How?
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“World Bank; Innovations for Poverty Action. 2024. Evidence at your Fingertips Series: Operational and Design Choices of Social Assistance Programs. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/41715 License: CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO.”
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Publication Cash or In-Kind Transfers(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-06-14)As a part of “Evidence at Your Fingertips Series”, this note summarizes how the transfer modality can affect outcomes based on a literature review of impact evaluations published in the past decade. In general, cash transfers appear to be more effective than in-kind transfers or vouchers at improving a range of outcomes, including decreasing monetary poverty, improving health and nutrition, and increasing food security, across diverse country contexts, program objectives, and design features. However, identifying a superior modality can be challenging due to the heterogeneity in context, program design, and objectives of the studies reviewed, despite evidence generally favoring the effectiveness of cash transfers and acknowledging the enhanced effectiveness of a combination of modalities, referred to as cash plus, in specific cases. For example, in-kind transfers may be preferred when the markets are not functioning, have limited stock, or when programs are designed to influence behaviors, such as consumption patterns, or provide basic needs in the face of crises.Publication Cash Transfer Timing(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-06-14)As a part of “Evidence at Your Fingertips Series”, this note summarizes the impacts of cash transfers based on the duration and frequency of transfers. The review is largely based on the impact evaluations published in the past decade, finding that the impact of cash transfers varies based on duration, depending on whether they are distributed over a short (24 months or less) or long (more than 24 months) period. Cash transfers distributed over a long period provide predictability that is associated with greater impact, particularly with transfers distributed to improve children’s health, nutrition and education, and employment and labor. A longer duration of transfers allows for households to plan, which in turn allows households to engage in riskier yet more-profitable income-generating activities, when available. While the evidence suggests that frequency of cash disbursements alone does not significantly affect outcomes, it is important to remember that the confluence of size, frequency, and duration of cash transfers may produce different results than any single factor in isolation.Publication Cash Transfer Payment Mechanisms(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-06-14)As a part of “Evidence at Your Fingertips Series”, this note aims to summarize the impacts of cash transfers based on payment mechanisms which have diversified greatly in recent years. The review is largely based on the impact evaluation published in the past decade, finding that the payment mechanism—whether physical (in-person) or digital— does not have notably different impacts on how recipients use cash or on key outcome indicators related to consumption, gender, and financial inclusion. That said, digital transfers may be more cost-effective for both implementers and beneficiary households than physical cash payments, expand customer coverage for participating mobile network operators, and provide avenues to increase financial inclusion for the poor. While digital payments can offer opportunities, it is essential to invest in appropriate infrastructure and mechanisms to reach digitally excluded populations.Publication Cash Transfer Size(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-06-14)As a part of “Evidence at Your Fingertips Series”, this note summarizes the impacts of cash transfers on a range of outcomes, depending on the size (adequacy, benefit level or amount) of transfer values. The review is largely based on the impact evaluations published in the past decade, finding that high(er)-value cash transfers typically produce greater impacts. However, low(er)-value transfers can also achieve measurable impacts, particularly when accompanying by behavior change communication. Provided in lumpsum, high-value transfers may allow beneficiary households to invest or save more compared to smaller transfers provided over time in a frequent manner. While cash transfers show positive impacts in reducing gender related violence, high-value transfers can have the potential to increase physical abuse in certain demographic tiers more than less-conspicuous low-value transfers. Although the size is a key parameter, it is important to consider the confluence with other factors including target population, duration, frequency, timing, and payment modalities when designing and implementing a program.Publication Belarus - Social Assistance Policy Note : Improving Targeting Accuracy of Social Assistance Programs(Washington, DC, 2011-05)Belarus has a large and extensive social protection system (SP) covering a significant share of the population. Belarus has adopted a single methodology for calculating income to target Public Targeted Social Assistance (GASP). This methodology also is used when testing an applicant's income/means for some of the child benefits. To reduce the leakage of benefits to the non-poor while expanding GASP, this note assesses the usefulness of applying a Hybrid-Means-Test method (HMT), a variation of the means-testing method that combines means testing and proxy-means testing. All outcomes in this note have been estimated on the basis of the 2008 Belarusian Household Budget Survey (2008 HBS). The HMT model improves estimates of 'means' by generating a predicted value for hard-to-verify incomes, which are then added to the observed (reported) values of easy-to-verify incomes. In this way, the HMT model can improve predictions of per capita households (HH) income. The note is divided in six sections. In section one, the authors present an overview of the current social safety net (SSN) programs in Belarus, their design features, number of beneficiaries, and eligibility criteria to draw the overall picture of the types of programs delivered in Belarus and the magnitude of their public spending. Section two reviews the targeting accuracy of existent SP programs in Belarus. Section three analyzes whether HMT can be an option for targeting in Belarus. Section four presents the HMT formulae. In section five the authors describe how HMT also can be used for client profiling of beneficiaries. In section six, the authors conclude by discussing the results of some simulations about the targeting accuracy of the HMT method.
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Publication The State of Social Safety Nets 2018(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2018-03-14)The State of Social Safety Nets 2018 Report examines global trends in the social safety net/social assistance coverage, spending, and program performance based on the World Bank Atlas of Social Protection Indicators of Resilience and Equity (ASPIRE) updated database. The report documents the main social safety net programs that exist globally and their use to alleviate poverty and to build shared prosperity. The 2018 report expands on the 2015 edition, both in administrative and household survey data coverage. A distinct mark of this report is that, for the first time, it tells the story of what happens with SSN/SA programs spending and coverage over time, when the data allow us to do so. This 2018 edition also features two special themes: Social Assistance and Ageing, focusing on the role of old-age social pensions, and Adaptive Social Protection, focusing on what makes SSN systems/programs adaptive to various shocks.Publication Revisiting the 'Cash versus Food' Debate(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2016-02)The longstanding “cash versus food” debate has received renewed attention in both research and practice. This paper reviews key issues shaping the debate and presents new evidence from randomized and quasi-experimental evaluations that deliberately compare cash and in-kind food transfers in ten developing counties. Findings show that relative effectiveness cannot be generalized: although some differences emerge in terms of food consumption and dietary diversity, average impacts tend to depend on context, specific objectives, their measurement, and program design. Costs for cash transfers and vouchers tend to be significantly lower relative to in-kind food. Yet the consistency and robustness of methods for efficiency analyses varies greatly.Publication The Other Side of the Coin(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2016-06-08)Over 60 million people are currently displaced due to conflict or violence, and about 140 million are exposed to natural disasters. As part of humanitarian responses to those affected populations, growing attention is paid to cash transfers as a form of assistance. Cash is being strongly advocated by several actors, and for good reasons: they have the potential to provide choice, empower people, and spark economic multipliers. But what is their comparative performance relative to in-kind transfers? Are there objectives for which there are particular evidence gaps? And what should be considered when choosing between those forms of assistance? This paper is one of the first reviews examining those questions across humanitarian sectors and in relation to multiple forms of assistance, including cash, vouchers, and in-kind assistance (food and non-food). These were assessed based on solid impact evaluations and through the lens of food security, nutrition, livelihoods, health, education, and shelter objectives. The paper finds that there is large variance in the availability of comparative evidence across sectors. This ranges from areas where evidence is substantial (i.e., food security) to realms where it is limited (i.e., nutrition) or where not a single comparative evaluation was available (i.e., health, education, and shelter). Where evidence is substantial, data shows that the effectiveness of cash and in-kind transfers is similar on average. In terms of costs, cash is generally more efficient to delivery. However, overall costs would hinge on the scale of interventions, crisis context, procurement practices, and a range of ‘hidden costs’. In other words, the appropriateness of transfers cannot be predetermined and should emerge from response analysis that considers program objectives, the level of market functionality, predicted cost-effectiveness, implementation capacity, the management of key risks such as on protection and gender, political economy, beneficiary preferences, and resource availability. Finally, it seems possible (and necessary) to reconcile humanitarian imperatives with solid research to inform decision-making, especially on dimensions beyond food security.Publication Consolidating Social Protection and Labor Policy in Tunisia(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-12-01)Tunisia today represents a paradox: despite political progress since its 2011 revolution, wide economic and social disparities persist, threatening stability. While Tunisia has several social protection and labor programs in place, its ability to respond to increasing social needs is compromised by inefficiency, fragmentation, and inequity. The objective of this note is to evaluate the effectiveness of Tunisia’s main social protection and labor programs and identify options for reform through a systems-based approach. The note accompanies the Tunisia systematic country diagnostic (2015) with evidence on the efficiency and equity of key social protection and labor programs. Importantly, this note contributes new analysis on how to bolster Tunisia’s social protection and labor programs by focusing on three main areas of systems building: (i) financing and sustainability, (ii) institutions and governance, and (iii) service delivery. The note argues that without significantly improving institutional coordination on financing and delivery, Tunisia’s social protection and labor system will be ill equipped to strengthen economic and social inclusion.Publication India(Washington, DC, 2016-03)Primary school education is a basic building block for children’s development, preparing them for success later in life. But in many countries, poor children often don’t finish school even if it’s available to them. Those who do stay in school may not learn much. The quality of education can be so low that children end up completing primary school without learning to read or do basic math. Concerns that the program would have a negative effect on fee-paying students proved unfounded. Similarly, concerns that voucher students wouldn’t be able to keep up with the work also proved unfounded. 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