Abstract

Food insecurity is one of the international community's priorities in sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA). This article investigates the role played by cash transfers (CTs), the social protection scheme with the largest coverage, in enhancing food security in this region. First, it offers an innovative conceptual framework for explaining the channels through which CT programs can affect food security. Second, based on this conceptual framework, it provides a comprehensive review of evidence of the effects of CTs on different components/indicators of food security in low‐income countries in SSA. The article shows that CTs offer great potential for reducing monetary poverty and enhancing households’ access to food, as long as they take full account of important aspects related to their design and implementation. On the other hand, CTs alone cannot influence nutrition knowledge and practice, and are proved to have limited or no effects on food security outcomes, such as diet diversification or child anthropometrics. In order to enhance all the different aspects of food security in the medium to long term, CTs should be integrated with other, social and economic, interventions.

Highlights

  • Food security has been one of the highest priorities on the international development agenda at least since the hike in food prices in 2007-2008

  • This paper focuses on one important type of social protection scheme, i.e. cash transfers (CTs), and their role in alleviating food insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)

  • A rigorous impact evaluation conducted by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) together with the World Food Programme (WFP) in Bangladesh revealed that CTs had a substantially bigger impact on child nutrition – as measured by stunting – when combined with a nutritional education component (Ahmed, Hoddinott, Shalini, Sraboni, & Quabili, & Margolies, 2016)

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Summary

Discussion

16/2016 Strupat, Christoph. (2016). From protection to reduction? The impact of the public health insurance scheme on child labour in Ghana (20 pp.). The impact of the public health insurance scheme on child labour in Ghana (20 pp.). Ecuador’s fiscal policies in the context of the citizens’ revolution: A ‘virtuous cycle’ and its limits (62 pp.). Reforming the UN Development System: Can North and South overcome their political differences in making the UN fit for purpose? Promoting the Sustainable Development Goals in Germany (36 pp.). Minorities and trade: What do we know, and how can policymakers take it into account? 10/2016 Stephenson, Sherry, Alexandros Ragoussis, & Jimena Sotelo. Implications of the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) for developing countries (49 pp.). [Price: EUR 6.00; publications may be ordered from the DIE or through bookshops.]

Introduction
Conceptual framework
Middle-income countries
Low-income countries
Findings
Concluding remarks and policy recommendations
Full Text
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