One Plus One can be Greater than Two: Evaluating Synergies of Development Programmes in Malawi

Abstract

This paper investigates the interplay between the Social Cash Transfer Programme (SCTP) and the Farm Input Subsidy Programme (FISP) in Malawi. We take advantage of data collected from a 17-month evaluation of a sample of households eligible to receive SCTP, which also provided information about inclusion into FISP. We estimate two types of synergies: i) the complementarity between SCTP and FISP, that is whether the impact of both interventions run together is larger than the sum of the impacts of these interventions when run separately, and ii) the incremental impact of receiving FISP when a household already receives SCTP, as well as the incremental impact of receiving SCTP when a household already receives FISP. The analysis shows that there are synergies between the two policy interventions, mainly in terms of incremental impacts of each programme over the other, in increasing expenditure, agricultural production and livestock.

Linking Social Protection Schemes: The Joint Effects of a Public Works and a Health Insurance Programme in Ethiopia

“…14. The specification used to identify the joint effect differs from Pace et al (2017). In their specification, the sample is divided into four mutually exclusive groups and their variable indicating joint participation takes on a value 1 and 0 otherwise and is not an interaction term.…”

“…In contrast, there is a comparatively well-developed literature which has examined the interlinkages between agricultural interventions and social protection programmes, although papers on Africa even in this literature are limited. 1 For instance, Pace et al (2017) use difference-in-difference (DiD) with propensity score matching to analyse the joint effect of Malawi's Farm Input Subsidy Program (FISP) and Social Cash Transfer Program (SCTP), which target poor and ultra-poor households, on household expenditure and production. Despite the lack of explicit coordination between the two programmes, the authors find that the joint effect of participating in both programmes increases total expenditure per adult equivalent by 24 per cent as compared to the baseline mean for households who participate in both the programmes and the value of production increases by at least 70 per cent of the baseline mean.…”

Model Ekonomi Rumah Tangga Pertanian Usaha Padi Penerima PKH Kabupaten Karawang

“…Penelitian ini tidak berbeda jauh dengan penelitian Pace et al (2017), bahwa ada sinergi antara kebijakan subsidi pupuk dan kebijakan cash transfer kepada petani miskin. Selain itu menurut Perera et al (2016), cash program lebih disukai daripada subsidi dalam bentuk natura karena produksi keseluruhan diperkirakan akan meningkat jika pemerintah memberikan transfer uang tunai yang setara dengan nilai subsidi pupuk.…”

Making Cash Crop Value Chains Nutrition-Sensitive: Evidence from a Quasi-Experiment in Rural Sierra Leone

“…While tackling key barriers to improved nutrition from different sectoral purviews, there may be interactions between these agricultural and nutrition programmes, such that combining the two can deliver larger nutritional and health benefits than implementing them in isolation. Except for few recent studies (Kumar et al, 2018;Ogutu et al, 2018;Pace et al, 2018;Rosenberg et al, 2018), most existing assessments of integrated agriculture and nutrition programmes tend to focus largely on the stand-alone impacts and give little considerations to the potential synergies between them. The knowledge gap is even more severe for cash crop sectors, where integrated interventions are lacking.…”

“…This could lead to better allocation of scarce resources, and reduce significantly the costs of implementing separate programmes to realize the same objectives. Further, in case there are high and significant levels of substitutability, this analysis will inform policymakers on which desired outcomes to prioritize to prevent unintentionally crowding out the effects of other interventions (Ogutu et al, 2018;Pace et al, 2018;Ruel & Alderman, 2013).…”