Evidence shows that cash transfers promote economic empowerment, while decreasing poverty and food insecurity. However, there is little evidence on household poverty reduction and linkages to violence against children from Tanzania.
Lusajo Kajula presented the findings of her impact evaluations of Tanzania's Productive Social Safety Net on violence against children at INSPIRE in August 2018.
SMART BANGLADESH I PPTX I SLIDE IShovan Prita Paul.pptx
Cash Transfers, Violence & Youth
1. Findings on Violence Against
Children & Youth from Two Impact
Evaluations within TASAF’s
Productive Social Safety Net (PSSN)
Lusajo Kajula, Ph.D.
On behalf of PSSN Youth Study and
Tanzania Cash Plus Evaluation teams
INSPIRE event, Dar es Salaam: August 2018
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2. Introduction: Cash transfers, violence &
youth
• Cash transfers increasingly implemented by
governments to reduce poverty
• Also advocated for VAC reduction as part of INSPIRE
– However, little/no evidence to date on household
poverty reduction and linkages to VAC from Tanzania
• Economic drivers of GBV pathways (school drop-
out, poor mental health, early marriage, HIV risk
behaviors) and violence outcomes
– Are economic strengthening programs protective?
– Key group to breaking the inter-generational cycle of
poverty
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3. Plus
• TASAF has implemented PSSN since 2015 and it currently reaches
1.1 million households nationally
• PSSN targets whole households w/ support for young children, in
school youth & adults (PWP)
– many adolescents, including out of school youth overlooked (60%
PSSN youth 15-18 years out of school)
• Existing interventions often fall short: focus on individual &
ignore household poverty (structural driver of poor outcomes)
• Important outcomes can be created when linking PSSN youth to
other services & interventions
– Key population to “break the intergenerational cycle of poverty”
– Economic empowerment alone insufficient; need to simultaneously
address SRH to reach full productive potential
Leveraging a poverty reduction platform
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4. Research questions
• Can household-level, poverty targeted cash
transfers in Tanzania (PSSN) reduce gender-
based violence and sexual exploitation
among females aged 14-28 years?
• Can complementary interventions and
linkages to existing services targeted to
adolescents 14-19 years in PSSN households
reduce gender-based violence and sexual
exploitation?
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5. How do we answer these questions?
Mixed methods
Quantitative:
• Compare changes between Beneficiaries and
Control, over the study periods
• Study 1: 2015-2017
• Study 2: 2017-2019 (expected)
Qualitative:
• In-depth interviews, to better contextualize and
interpret the quantitative results
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4
6. Study 1:
Impacts of the
TASAF PSSN on
Youth Well-
being and Safe
Transitions to
Adulthood
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5
7. PSSN Impacts on Reproductive Health &
Violence, Youth Ages 14-28
PSSN Impacts Endline control
averageAll Females Males
Sexual debut - - - 0.47
Concurrent sexual
relationships (last 12 months)
- - - 0.06
HIV testing (last 12 months) - - - 0.34
Experienced any violence*
(emotional, physical, sexual)
- 0.33
Formal help-seeking among
violence victims*
0.31 0.00
Impacts are only reported if statistically significant. The sign “-” indicates non significant impacts.
* Data collected among females only
“It sometimes happens, especially when I
ask for money and when I tell him about
my personal needs, he insults me and
shows me disrespect.”
[16-year old female, Misungwi]
9. Cash Plus: Planning Phase
• Program components:
– The Cash: PSSN households
– The Plus:
• Livelihoods intervention (economic empowerment) to 1,250 youth
• SRH demand: Education on SRH, HIV prevention, gender
• SRH supply: Linkages to SRH, HIV and other health and violence
response services in the communities
• Location: Mufindi and Rungwe districts
• Partners: TASAF, Tanzania AIDS Commission (TACAIDS),
Ministry of Community Development, Gender, Children &
Health, UNICEF
• Implementation: district-level community development
officers & health workers for maximum capacity building
and sustainability; TASAF leading
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11. Violence
0
.2.4.6.8
1
14 15 16 17 18 19
Age at baseline
Females Males
Proportion of Adolescents experiencing
emotional or physical violence – past 12
months, by gender
0
.2.4.6.8
1
Proportionexperiencedforcedsex-12mo
14 15 16 17 18 19
Age at baseline
Females Males
Proportion of Adolescents experiencing forced
sexual intercourse – past 12 months, by age
and gender
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12. Challenges
• Nature of beneficiaries- immediate need versus
long-term investment
• Parents not understanding research
• Community leaders not understanding research
• Balancing needs: In-school vs. out of school youth
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13. • Building evidence base on household economic strengthening & VAC:
– in Tanzania
– Among government cash transfer programs
• Females higher rates of emotional violence; males higher rates
physical violence
• Very few sought help from an authority
• PSSN appears to have increased formal help-seeking but did not
reduce overall experience of violence
• Cash is important, but not sufficient to address all barriers to safe and
productive transitions to adulthood and reducing violence
• Powerful synergies may be created when linking adolescents in PSSN
households to other services and interventions
• First impact findings (midline) to be released in early 2019
Conclusion & recommendations
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14. • Transfer Project website: https://transfer.cpc.unc.edu/?page_id=3577A
• Briefs: http://www.cpc.unc.edu/projects/transfer/publications/briefs
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TransferProject
• Twitter: @TransferProjct
• Email: lkajula@unicef.org
For more information
Ghana, credit: Ivan Griffi
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15. Study 1: Acknowledgments & Evaluation
Team
UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti: Tia Palermo (co-Principal Investigator), Amber Peterman, Leah
Prencipe, Lisa Hjelm, Valeria Groppo, Jacob de Hoop
REPOA: Flora Myamba (co-Principal Investigator, baseline), Blandina Kilama (co-Principal Investigator,
endline), Paula Tibandebage
TASAF: Tumpe Lukongo, Paul Luchemba
UNICEF Tanzania: Paul Quarles van Ufford
The evaluation team would like to acknowledge the support of the TASAF and TACAIDS, in particular Ladislaus
Mwamanga (TASAF), Amadeus Kamagenge (TASAF), Mishael Fariji (TASAF), and Fatma Mrisho (TACAIDS), for
the implementation of this evaluation. In addition, the UNICEF Tanzania team was instrumental to the success
of this baseline evaluation: Alison Jenkins, Beatrice Targa, Victoria Chuwa, and Tulanoga Matwimbi. Thanks to
Corinna Keeler (Doctoral student, UNC Chapel Hill) for support on mapping data coordinates and to Steven
Okiya, Independent Consultant for support on CTO data entry software. Funding for this evaluation has
generously been provided by UNICEF Tanzania, UNICEF Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office, the
American World Jewish Service and an Anonymous Donor, Swedish International Development Cooperation
Agency (Sida) and the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID) through grants to
UNICEF Office of Research—Innocenti, supporting the Transfer Project and a research programme on
Structural Determinants of Adolescent Well-being. Funding for the REPOA study examining impacts of the
PSSN on women’s empowerment was provided IDRC’s Growth and economic Opportunities for Women
(GROW) research program.
We would also like to acknowledge Franque Grimard (McGill University) for technical support and the hard-
working field teams of REPOA, managed by Cornel Jahari, who conducted the data collection for this study to
the highest standards and all the households and youth who took part in this study.
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16. Study 2: Acknowledgments & Evaluation Team
Evaluation Team: Evaluation Team:
UNICEF Office of Research: Tia Palermo (co-Principal Investigator), Lusajo Kajula, Jacob de Hoop, Leah
Prencipe, Valeria Groppo
EDI: Johanna Choumert Nkolo (co-Principal Investigator), Respichius Mitti (co-Principal Investigator),
Nathan Sivewright, Koen Leuveld, Bhoke Munanka
TASAF: Paul Luchemba, Tumpe Lukongo
TACAIDS: Aroldia Mulokozi, Jumanne Issango
UNICEF Tanzania: Ulrike Gilbert, Paul Quarles van Ufford, Rikke Le Kirkegaard, Frank Eetaama
We thank Technoserv and Tamasha for technical assistance in curriculum development
The evaluation team would like to acknowledge the support of the TASAF and TACAIDS, in particular
Ladislaus Mwamanga (TASAF), Amadeus Kamagenge (TASAF), and Mishael Fariji (TASAF) for the
implementation of this evaluation. In addition, the UNICEF personnel instrumental to the initial
planning stages of this pilot and study include: Beatrice Targa, Patricia Lim Ah Ken, Victoria Chuwa,
Naomi Neijhoft and Tulanoga Matwimbi. Funding for this evaluation has generously been provided by
Oak Foundation; UNICEF Tanzania; and Sida, through a grant to UNICEF Office of Research—Innocenti
supporting the Transfer Project.
We would also like to acknowledge the hard-working field teams of EDI, who conducted the data
collection for this study to the highest professional standards.
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Note: ELA from BRAC was an adolescent-targeted (not household-targeted program). In Uganda, ELA found reduced SV. In Tanzania, no impacts.
Two larger programs in Africa: South Africa & Ethiopia
PSSN comprised of
Unconditional & conditional cash transfers
Public works
Livelihood component
(3rd largest government cash transfer in Africa)
Similarity between Beneficiaries and Control is ensured by random assignment of villages to treatment and control arms. Extensive statistical tests confirmed that the two groups were similar at baseline, in terms of individual and household characteristics and outcomes of interest.
No impacts on sexual debut, risky sexual behaviors, HIV testing, or violence experience.
Violence prevalence (among females only, due to ethical considerations in administering questionnaire): At endline, 28 per cent of treatment females and 26 per cent of control females experienced emotional violence in the previous 12 months. Further, approximately 18 per cent and 14 per cent of treatment and control females experienced physical violence in the previous 12 months, respectively, at endline.
With respect to the combined measure of emotional, physical, or sexual violence in the previous 12 months, 24 and 33 of treatment and control females experienced this at endline.
A caveat in these findings is reported rates of violence were much higher at baseline than endline, suggesting some inconsistencies in the way the module was administered over time. However, these would have affected by control and treatment youth, so does not impede ability to study programme impact.
Females from PSSN households who experienced physical or emotional violence were 31 pp more likely to seek formal help than those in control households. Formal help is defined as police, doctor/health worker, priest/religious leader, counsellor, NGO/women’s organization, or local leader. However, this estimate results from a small sample size and should be interpreted with caution. There were no impacts on informal help-seeking.
Cluster Randomized Control Trial (RCT)
Mixed method with embedded qualitative interviews
Longitudinal (2 years)
Multiple data sources
community (n=130)
health facility (n=91)
household (n=1946)
youth surveys (n=2458)
So, in sum, we’re finding a lot of promising evidence on the impacts of these government run unconditional cash transfers on some of the pathways related to youth safely transitioning into adulthood.
Programs are largely at scale, so we have evidence of external validity for our findings.
However, we don’t know as much about how bundling of services may have an effect on impacts, or if additional top-ups or components for targeted populations would have different effects or perhaps more cost-effective for targeting specific outcomes. So, we recommend more piloting of youth and gender specific “plus” components, that address both bundling services and targeting these services directly at youth to address these structural determinants. There is a strong need for more evaluations for these type of bundled programs, and we recently got an opportunity to evaluate a cash plus intervention in Tanzania.