Alliance2015 Multi Country Covid-19 Research
This page is about the research carried out by Concern with other Alliance2015 partners in multiple countries: 'COVID-19 impacts on community resilience in the Global South'.
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Unconditional cash transfers (UCTs) are used as a humanitarian intervention to prevent acute malnutrition, despite a lack of evidence about their effectiveness.
In Niger, UCTs and supplementary feeding are given during the June–September “lean season,” although admissions of malnourished children to feeding programmes may rise from March/April. This study hypothesised that earlier initiation of the UCT would reduce the prevalence of global acute malnutrition (GAM) in children 6-59 months old in programme participant households and at the population level.
Although the study observed a temporary increase in food security for programme participants in the pre-lean season, there was no evidence that starting the UCT 2 months earlier and providing the same amount of cash over a longer period, together with 4 months of supplementary feeding, would be beneficial to children's nutritional status. There is already evidence that cash usually needs to be combined with complementary interventions to impact on nutrition.
Evidence from a cash transfer project in Niger|PDF(461 KB)