Can Maternal Cash Transfers Coupled with Nutrition Behaviour Change Reduce Food Insecurity during the Lean Season? Experimental Evidence from Rural Malawi

Anissa Collishaw, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Daniel Maggio, Rutgers University
Aulo Gelli, International Food Policy Research Institute

Rural households in Malawi face high levels of poverty and recurring extreme lean season food security shocks. We conducted a randomized trial to assess the impact of coupling gender-targeted, unconditional cash transfers of varying sizes with a nutrition social behaviour change (SBC) intervention on the diets and food insecurity of households during the lean season. We find that households receiving a large cash transfer experienced significantly lower food insecurity, 16% higher food consumption, and were able to smooth caloric availability during the lean season. This effect is driven by a relative increase in consumption from own production rather than increased food expenditures.In contrast, households receiving the SBC intervention on its own or a smaller cash transfer experienced a significant decline in caloric availability over this period.

Keywords: Randomized controlled experiments , Econometrics , Health and Morbidity, Population and Development

See paper.