Niger
No. 49024. Germany and Niger
Assets for Alimentation?
A recent strand of aid programming aims to develop household assets by removing the stresses associated with meeting basic nutritional needs. In this paper we posit that such programmes can also boost nutrition in recipient households by encouraging further investment in diet. To test this hypothesis we study the World Food Programme’s “Protracted Relief and Recovery Operation (PRRO)” in Niger a conflict-affected low income country with a high share of malnourishment. Under PRRO a household could be in one of three groups at endline: receiving food aid to prevent malnutrition receiving both preventive food aid and food for assets assistance or receiving no assistance (the control group). When provided only by itself the food aid has no nutritional impact relative to receiving no assistance. However we observe pronounced positive effects when preventive food aid is paired with assets-based programming over and above what stems from greater household assets. We conclude first that certain forms of food aid function well in complex insecure environments; second that assets-based programmes deliver positive nutritional spillovers; and third that there are theoretical grounds to believe that asset-based programmes interact positively with more nutrition-focused programming.
How to Target Households in Adaptive Social Protection Systems?
The methods used to identify beneficiaries of programmes aiming to address persistent poverty and shocks are subject to frequent policy debates. Relying on panel data from Niger this paper analyses the performance of different targeting methods that are widely used by development and humanitarian actors and explores how they can be applied as part of an adaptive social protection (ASP) system. The methods include proxy-means testing (PMT) household economy analysis (HEA) geographical targeting and combined methods. Results show that PMT performs better in identifying persistently poor households while HEA performs better in identifying transiently food insecure households. Geographical targeting is particularly efficient in responding to food crises which tend to be largely covariate in nature. Combinations of geographical PMT and HEA approaches may be used as part of an efficient and scalable ASP system. Results motivate the consolidation of data across programmes which can support the application of alternative targeting methods tailored to programme-specific objectives.