SOCIAL PROTECTION FOR AGRICULTURE AND RESILIENCE

Cash transfer programs that provide households support for purchasing food have effectively reduced conflict-driven acute malnutrition in Yemen, according to new research from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

Cash transfers are a promising tool to reduce intimate partner violence, but can they be effective across diverse contexts and program design? In this blog, Melissa Hidrobo and Shalini Roy identify three policy-relevant knowledge gaps related to the potential of transfer programs to reduce IPV, then address them drawing on case studies from Ecuador, Bangladesh, and Mali.

Development programs often have a bigger impact than we intend – or even measure. The Transfer Modality Research Initiative in Bangladesh not only led to improved food security and nutrition, but also had a range of unintended benefits. In this Devex oped, our social protection team colleagues explain how this happened.

An IFPRI analysis of the Bangladesh's Vulnerable Group Development (VGD) program, which provides assistance to poor women in rural areas, revealed flaws in the standards used to target recipients and recommended new criteria, which the government will begin using in 2019.

In these two brief video interviews, we asked our colleagues Sheri Arnott (World Vision) and Bart Minten (IFPRI) to talk about the great work that our IFPRI team and partners have been doing to support the implementation of Ethiopia's Productive Safety Net Programme.

Harold Alderman, senior research fellow at IFPRI and collaborator in PIM’s “Social Protection for Agriculture and Resilience” research flagship, speaks about the importance of transfer programs, how they can be improved, and how researchers can help in design of such programs. What else is required if social protection programs are to go beyond poverty alleviation and become graduation programs as well?

In this video, Daniel Gilligan, senior research fellow at IFPRI and leader of PIM's research flagship “Social Protection for Agriculture and Resilience”, discusses why social protection programs, such as cash transfers, food rations, school meals, and public works are now a leading strategy that governments use to help reduce poverty and help households to become more resilient.