Selected Publications

Abstract:

This study adapts BRAC’s ultra-poverty program to focus on child nutrition, household food security and resilience, and evaluates its impact in two regions of Burkina Faso. In our study, we test the hypothesis that a targeted cash transfer, asset transfer, and nutrition-focused project can transform the early childhood environment to reduce poverty and malnutrition. We expect to test whether the program has effects on poverty and productivity as well as children’s anemia level, stunting and, after two years of program implementation, young children’s cognition. This cluster randomized-control trial also seeks to assess the independent contributions of assets and nutrition interventions, potential spillover of such policy on other individuals in the village and the cost-effectiveness of such policies in the long-run. The target populations are ultra-poor and poor households with a breastfeeding/pregnant or malnourished child under 5 years old. Villages were first randomly assigned to treatment and control branch (43 in control) and second, treatment villages were assigned to either unconditional cash transfer (T1), a cash and asset transfer branch (T2), or a cash, asset transfer as well as a nutritional focused interventions (T3).