This research project focuses on the role of social protection schemes to enhance food security and promote rural development in sub-Saharan Africa. It will investigate and compare the effects of different programmes on food security as well as the technical and political challenges in designing and implementing diverse social policies, such as cash-transfers, (micro) insurance schemes, public works and school meal programmes in rural areas. Furthermore, the project examines impacts of the interaction between social protection programmes and interventions that focus on agricultural productivity or nutritional education (multi-sectoral approaches).
The project team evaluates an economic empowerment project of the GIZ in Malawi. This pilot project will be implemented in one district within the national social cash transfer programme. It will extend the monthly small cash transfer with a larger lump-sum transfer as well as business training. We intend to cooperate in the evaluation of this pilot project, which will end in 2016. The objective is to verify whether the lump sum transfer, the business training or the combination of the two have a substantial impact on household income, savings, assets, consumption and food security. Moreover, we will study the results disaggregated by gender. To reach this objective, we conduct a baseline survey between, and plan to do an endline survey in the second half of 2016.
In Ethiopia the project team empirically examines the well-know Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP), which started in 2005 and aims at improving food security and agricultural productivity of rural households. The focus of the study will not solely be on the impacts of the PSNP, but mainly will explore the possible linkages with other programmes that have improved the nutritional status of individuals during the last years (e.g. the community-based nutrition program (CBN) and the school-meal program). Information on these programmes will be gathered during extensive field research in Ethiopia. The aim is to investigate whether the interaction between PSNP and the CBN or the school-meal programme is effective in reducing food security and improving the diet quality of individuals. In collaboration with the University of Passau, DIE conducts an impact evaluation of a micro health insurance programme in Burkina Faso. The aim of the study is to investigate whether the health insurance affects the productivity of farmers.