Can Social Protection Affect Psychosocial Wellbeing and Why Does This Matter? Lessons from Cash Transfers in Sub-Saharan Africa

Attah, Ramlatu; Barca, Valentina; Kardan, Andrew; MacAuslan, Ian; Merttens, Fred; Pellerano, Luca

doi:10.1080/00220388.2015.1134777

Cited by 69 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Consequently, their opportunities to receive social support and positive influence through relationships, which help them cope with stress and discourage risky sexual behavior, are curtailed. Poverty alleviation programs that ensure respectful, empowering interactions between implementers and beneficiaries (Attah et al, 2016) and are responsive to needs of beneficiary sub-groups hold promise for increasing social participation, social networks, and mental and physical health of young women and men in this context.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…By enabling households to meet basic needs, a cash transfer program could improve youth’s participation in school, religious community and community organizations, and reduce social isolation and stigma (Attah et al, 2016); consequently, youth would have more opportunities to build more interactive and beneficial peer networks (Pavanello et al, 2016). Locations where the cash transfers are distributed could even themselves be transformed into new spaces for social gathering (Pavanello et al, 2016).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Social networks, social participation, and health among youth living in extreme poverty in rural Malawi

Rock

Barrington

Abdoulayi³

et al. 2016

Social Science & Medicine

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Extensive research documents that social network characteristics affect health, but knowledge of peer networks of youth in Malawi and sub-Saharan Africa is limited. We examine the networks and social participation of youth living in extreme poverty in rural Malawi, using in-depth interviews with 32 youth and caregivers. We describe youth’s peer networks and assess how gender and the context of extreme poverty influence their networks and participation, and how their networks influence health. In-school youth had larger, more interactive, and more supportive networks than out-of-school youth, and girls described less social participation and more isolation than boys. Youth exchanged social support and influence within their networks that helped cope with poverty-induced stress and sadness, and encouraged protective sexual health practices. However, poverty hampered their involvement in school, religious schools, and community organizations, directly through lack of required material means, and indirectly by reducing time and emotional resources and creating shame and stigma. Poverty alleviation policy holds promise for improving youth’s social wellbeing and mental and physical health by increasing their opportunities to form networks, receive social support, and experience positive influence.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social networks, social participation, and health among youth living in extreme poverty in rural Malawi

Rock

Barrington

Abdoulayi³

et al. 2016

Social Science & Medicine

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“…More recent attention, however, has focused on the effect of cash transfers on subjective assessments and experiences to understand the broader, more holistic impact of these programs on well-being. Qualitative evidence from programs across Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East reveals a predominantly positive psychosocial impact (Samuels & Stavropoulou, 2016) and that improved psychosocial well-being may further contribute to positive impacts in other domains such as decisionmaking (Attah et al, 2016). However, quantitative evidence on the relationship between social cash transfers and happiness is limited and inconsistent.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Paying for Happiness: Experimental Results from a Large Cash Transfer Program in Malawi

Kilburn¹,

Handa²,

Ángeles³

et al. 2018

J Policy Anal Manage

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This study analyzes the short‐term impact of an exogenous, positive income shock on caregivers’ subjective well‐being (SWB) in Malawi using panel data from 3,365 households targeted to receive Malawi's Social Cash Transfer Program that provides unconditional cash to ultra‐poor, labor‐constrained households. The study consists of a cluster‐randomized, longitudinal design. After the baseline survey, half of these village clusters were randomly selected to receive the transfer and a follow‐up was conducted 17 months later. We find that the short‐term impact of household income increases from the cash transfer leads to substantial SWB gains among caregivers. After a year's worth of transfers, caregivers in beneficiary households have higher life satisfaction and are more likely to believe in a better future. We examine whether program impacts on consumption, food security, resilience, and hopefulness could explain the increase in SWB but do not find that any of these mechanisms individually mediate our results.

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“…Referring to general medical and reproductive health; improving health status in refugees can be provided by CBIs [77], [75] Healthier refugees, more likely to be employed; enabling beneficiaries to spend more on health care related items to be healthier by CBIs; accessing to better water, hygiene facilities and healthcare services lead to improvement of their health status [72], [52], [48] Continuing on the next page... [20], [47], [50], [78] More mental problems affect refugee's physical health; spending money on negative impacts such as anti-social expenditure and debt reducing refugee's mental health status and cause intra-house violence [30], [61], [47]…”

Section: Level Of General Healthmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cash-Based Interventions to Enhance Dignity in Persistent Humanitarian Refugee Crises: A System Dynamics Approach

Allahi

Taheri

Kian

et al. 2022

IEEE Trans. Eng. Manage.

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Cash-based interventions (CBIs) as one form of aid have recently received substantialinterestfromhumanitarianorganizationsinpersistenthumanitariancrises. This paper proposes a system dynamics (SD) approach to study the CBIs' impact factorsonallaspectsofthebeneficiaries'dignityinlongstandingrefugeecrisessuch as the case of Syrian refugees in Turkey. Reviewing the humanitarian management literature, we first develop a set of holistic causal loops to better understand the building-boxes of refugees dignity and their interactions. Then a system dynamic model is proposed and

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Can Social Protection Affect Psychosocial Wellbeing and Why Does This Matter? Lessons from Cash Transfers in Sub-Saharan Africa

Cited by 69 publications

References 16 publications

Social networks, social participation, and health among youth living in extreme poverty in rural Malawi

Social networks, social participation, and health among youth living in extreme poverty in rural Malawi

Paying for Happiness: Experimental Results from a Large Cash Transfer Program in Malawi

Cash-Based Interventions to Enhance Dignity in Persistent Humanitarian Refugee Crises: A System Dynamics Approach

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