The impact of cash transfer programs in building resilience: Insight from African countries

Abstract

Building on the existing literature, this chapter synthesizes the key findings of the From Protection to Production (PtoP) project of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), which studies the impact of SCT (social cash transfer) programs on household economic decision making. The cash transfer programs studied here are government-run cash transfer programs in SSA. We examine cross-country results to test the magnitude and distribution (that is, the heterogeneity) of the programs’ impacts on productivity and economic indicators, and the implications of these impacts for resilience. We also explore the underlying program design and implementation features that mediated the impacts.