Beyond Poverty Reduction: Evidence from a Multifaceted Program on Poverty, Nutrition, and Child Development

Abstract

We study the impacts of a multifaceted program implemented in Burkina Faso that targets ultra-poor households with young children or pregnant women. The experimental design includes a cash transfer program, a cash plus animal transfer program and a cash, animal and nutrition-focused transfer program. We find that the program significantly reduced extreme poverty in all treatment branches, but only the third, nutritionally focused program, positively impacted child nutrition and development. We find large impacts on young children's anthropometrics measures, motor development and cognitive development of new born children in the nutritionally focused program branch. Our results suggest that while transfer programs are effective at reducing household poverty, nutritionally focused programs are critical to trigger a cognitive response at the child level.

Keywords: Multifaced programs, cash transfer, asset transfer, nutrition, ultrapoor, social cohesion, peace and recovery

JEL Classification: I15, I32, I31