New from IFPRI on program evaluation

The impact of Oportunidades on human capital and income distribution

Indira Yerramareddy — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 00:09:25 -0400

In an effort to inform social policy in Mexico, this paper analyzes the effects of a major social program on school attendance and household income distribution, accounting for its partial and general equilibrium effects. Linking a microeconometric simulation model and a general equilibrium model in a bidirectional way, the paper explicitly takes spillover effects of the Oportunidades conditional cash transfer program into account. Our results suggest that partial equilibrium analysis alone may underestimate the distributional effects of the program.

The impact of oportunidades in Mexico

Can conditional cash transfers improve maternal health and birth outcomes?

PDF file:

ifpridp01257.pdf(922.5KB)

Heterogeneous pro-poor targeting in India’s Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme

Indira Yerramareddy — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 12:14:09 -0400

India’s Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) is the largest public works employment project in the world. Its most direct poverty reduction pathway is through boosting employment and income for the poor. How effectively this direct transfer mechanism reduces poverty turns fundamentally on the degree to which MGNREGS targets its resources toward otherwise-poor households. To explore this question, we use the 2009/10 National Sample Survey data to describe patterns of seeking, rationing, and participation in MGNREGS.

Targeting poverty through community-based public works programs

Growth-promoting social safety nets

In pursuit of votes

Designing and evaluating social safety nets

PDF file:

ifpridp01218.pdf(6.7MB)

Impact of Uganda’s National Agricultural Advisory Services Program

admin — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 12:07:26 -0400

In Uganda, agricultural extension has been hotly debated since the implementation of the National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS) program in 2001. Conceived as a demand-driven approach and largely publicly funded with services provided by the private sector, the NAADS program targets the development and use of farmer institutions. It is a key strategy in the government’s poverty-reduction and national development plan.

Assessing the impact of the National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS) in the Uganda rural livelihoods

PDF file:

rr175.pdf(1.6MB)

Evaluation of value-added agricultural advisory services

ktaylor — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 13:00:12 -0400

Introduction of private enterprises to deliver agricultural advisory services is seen as a strategy to increase the coverage and effectiveness of the pluralistic extension system in developing countries. The Indian national program of agriclinics and agribusiness centers, started in 2002, aims to provide farmers with a reliable alternative to the private input dealer by subsidizing technically trained agricultural graduates to establish their own agricultural input shops and agriclinic laboratories.

Review of agricultural extension in India

Decentralization of public-sector agricultural extension in India

Reforming the agricultural extension system in India

Promises and realities of community-based agricultural extension

How to make agricultural extension demand-driven?

PDF file:

ifpridp01125.pdf(1.4MB)

Impacts of an early education intervention on students’ learning achievement

ktaylor — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 11:47:22 -0400

This paper examines the impact of a large supply-side education intervention in the Philippines, the Third Elementary Education Project, on students’ national achievement test scores. We find that the program significantly increased student test scores at grades 4 to 6. The estimate indicates that the six-year exposure to the program increases test scores by about 15 score points. Interestingly, the mathematics score is more responsive to this education reform than other subjects.

How effective are food for education programs?

Human capital formation

Public Investment Strategies

Public expenditures, growth, and poverty

PDF file:

ifpridp01121.pdf(931.8KB)

Using the regression discontinuity design with implicit partitions

ktaylor — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 12:58:44 -0400

Regression discontinuity design (RDD) is a useful tool for evaluating programs when a single variable is used to determine program eligibility. RDD has also been used to evaluate programs when eligibility is based on multiple variables that have been aggregated into a single index using explicit, often arbitrary, weights. In this paper, we show that under specific conditions, regression discontinuity can be used in instances when more than one variable is used to determine eligibility, without assigning explicit weights to map those variables into a single measure.

Can conditional cash transfers improve maternal health and birth outcomes?

Conditional Cash Transfers in Latin America

Impact evaluation of a conditional cash transfer program

Must conditional cash transfer programs be conditioned to be effective?

PDF file:

ifpridp01116.pdf(1.3MB)

How do programs work to improve child nutrition?

Indira Yerramareddy — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 16:28:42 -0400

This paper examines the program logic of three nongovernmental, community-based programs with different intervention models to reduce childhood stunting. Two programs, Child Nutrition Program (PNI) and Good Start, focused directly on education and behavior change among caregivers, or the short routes to achieve impact, while one program, Sustainable Networks for Food Security (REDESA), focused on upstream factors, such as improving local governance and coordination, improving water and sanitation, and increasing family incomes, or the long routes to achieve impact.

Can conditional cash transfers improve maternal health and birth outcomes?

Case Study on IFPRI and Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) and Non-Conditional Cash Transfer (NCCT) Programs

Agriculture’s role in the Indian enigma

The use of operations research as tool for monitoring and managing food-assisted maternal/child health nutrition (MCHN) programs

From research to program design

PDF file:

ifpridp01105.pdf(1.1MB)

Women and Anti-Poverty Programs in Bangladesh

Stephanie Eng — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 09:49:19 -0400

Bangladesh has made impressive strides towards poverty reduction in the last decade. However, women continue to bear the burden of extreme poverty and malnutrition, a result of long-standing gender bias in the allocation of food and other resources within the household.

The impact of oportunidades in Mexico

Indira Yerramareddy — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 14:16:40 -0400

Conditional cash transfers (CCTs) have become a popular tool to reduce poverty and inequality in the short run and to promote investments in human capital. CCTs are now present in almost all parts of the developing world, especially in Latin America. As the name indicates, CCT programs transfer money to a targeted group conditional on the recipient’s behavior, such as school attendance for children, vaccinations, health checks for infants and pregnant women, and attendance of workshops on hygiene and nutrition.

PDF file:

dsgfs_oportunidades.pdf(141.3KB)

An analysis of institutions and policy processes for selected antipoverty interventions in Bangladesh

Aashana Arora — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 17:13:16 -0400

This study attempts to provide an understanding of how the process of institutional change influences the outcomes of interventions. To better understand the context in which these interventions took place, the study examines the institutional aspects of new agricultural technology interventions and the policy processes of food- and cash-based education incentive programs. The institutional analysis pays special attention to issues of institutional origins, persistence, and transformation.

PDF file:

ifpridp01046.pdf(509KB)

Comparing Food and Cash Transfers to the Ultra-Poor in Bangladesh

admin — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 11:11:52 -0400

Bangladesh has some social safety net programs that transfer food to the poor, some that transfer cash, and some that provide a combination of both. This study evaluates the relative impacts of food and cash transfers on food security and livelihood outcomes among the ultra poor in Bangladesh. The programs impacts are evaluated according to various measures, including how well transfers are delivered; which transfers beneficiaries prefer; how accurately the programs target the extremely poor; effects on food security, livelihoods, and women’s empowerment; and cost effectiveness.

Comparing food and cash incentives for schooling in Bangladesh

PDF file:

rr163.pdf(1.5MB)

The impact of Ethiopia's Productive Safety Net Programme and its linkages

admin — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 16:00:00 -0400

This paper assesses the impact of Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Nets Programme (PSNP), the largest social protection program in Sub-Saharan Africa outside of South Africa. Using Propensity Score Matching techniques, we find that the program has little impact on participants on average, due in part to transfer levels that fell far below program targets. Beneficiary households that received at least half of the intended transfers experienced a significant improvement in food security by some measures.

PDF file:

ifpridp00839.pdf(117.6KB)

Integrating survey and ethnographic methods to evaluate conditional cash transfer programs

admin — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 11:00:00 -0400

Survey and ethnographic methods have been combined in the evaluations of conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs for the governments of Nicaragua and Turkey. This paper describes the quantitative and qualitative research designs for these evaluations, discusses the relative benefits of quantitative and qualitative approaches for studying CCTs, and provides examples of how findings of these different approaches complemented, explained, illuminated, or contradicted each other.

PDF file:

ifpridp00810.pdf(188.1KB)

How effective are food for education programs?

admin — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:00:00 -0400

The economic motivations for investing in the education and nutritional status of primary-school-aged children are well established. Moreover, investments in both of these forms of human capital are likely to benefit from substantial complementarities. However, in developing countries, poor and credit-constrained households routinely invest less in education and nutrition than is privately or socially optimal.

Food for education

PDF file:

pv09.pdf(548.7KB)

Public expenditures, growth, and poverty

admin — Sun, 11 May 2008 15:27:17 -0400

Public Expenditures, Growth, and Poverty assesses the efficacy of poverty reduction programs in Latin America, Africa, and Asia by synthesizing studies conducted by the International Food Policy Research Institute over the past ten years. Overall, the studies find that investments in agricultural research, infrastructure, and human capital are beneficial in the long term, while food aid and poverty reduction programs have little utility beyond immediately abating hunger and generating short-run income effects.

Public expenditures, growth, and poverty in developing countries

Must conditional cash transfer programs be conditioned to be effective?

admin — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 10:00:00 -0400

A growing body of evidence suggests that conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs can have strong, positive effects on a range of welfare indicators for poor households in developing countries. However, the contribution of individual program components toward achieving these outcomes is not well understood.

Can conditional cash transfers improve maternal health and birth outcomes?

PDF file:

ifpridp00757.pdf(337KB)

How effective are food-for-education programs?

admin — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:00:00 -0400

Education and child health are important tools of poverty reduction and economic development. With the recent focus on universal primary education as a Millennium Development Goal, many developing countries have made dramatic improvements in primary school nrollment rates, but primary school attendance and secondary school participation remain low. One reason is that schoolage children in poor households are often needed to work on the farm or to care for younger siblings so that parents can work. Another reason is that poor health nd short term hunger cause children to miss school.

2020 Focus briefs on the world's poor and hungry people

PDF file:

beijingbrief_gilligan.pdf(129.3KB)

Comparing food and cash incentives for schooling in Bangladesh

admin — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 12:00:00 -0400

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) evaluated the FFE programme based on surveys of households and schools conducted in 2000. In 2003, IFPRI resurveyed the same households and schools to assess the impacts of the PES and compare them with those of the FFE. Econometric models captured the impacts of FFE and PES on enrollment and food consumption, isolating the effects of income and other factors.

Comparing Food and Cash Transfers to the Ultra-Poor in Bangladesh

PDF file:

comparing-food-and-cash-incentives.pdf(54.9KB)

Impact evaluation of a conditional cash transfer program

admin — Wed, 11 Jan 2006 16:00:00 -0400

In 2000, the Nicaraguan government implemented a conditional cash transfer program designed to improve the nutritional, health, and educational status of poor households, and thereby to reduce short- and long-term poverty. Based on the Mexican government’s successful PROGRESA program, Nicaragua’s Red de Protección Social (RPS) sought to supplement household income, reduce primary school dropout rates, and increase the health care and nutritional status of children under the age of five. This report represents IFPRI’s evaluation of phase I of RPS.

Impact evaluation of a conditional cash transfer program

Can conditional cash transfers improve maternal health and birth outcomes?

PDF file:

ab141.pdf(42.1KB)

Impact evaluation of a conditional cash transfer program

admin — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 11:00:00 -0400

Impact evaluation of a conditional cash transfer program

Can conditional cash transfers improve maternal health and birth outcomes?

PDF file:

rr141.pdf(405.2KB)