1) The document analyzes the impact of different combinations of cash plus agriculture interventions on outcomes in Somalia. 2) It finds that receiving both cash and inputs led to improved food security and increased income diversification compared to just receiving inputs. 3) Providing inputs alone increased wealth, while cash plus reduced severe and moderate food insecurity. 4) Impacts varied between gender and exposure to weather shocks, showing cash plus had a protective role during severe weather.

1. IMPACT OF CASH PLUS IN
SOMALIA
ELSA VALLI, SILVIO DAIDONE, NICHOLAS J. SITKO, IRENE
STAFFIERI
IFAD June 23rd, 2022

2. BACKGROUND
• Graduation and cash-plus programmes increasingly implemented to
support economic inclusion and poverty reduction
• Evidence gaps
• Particularly in fragile states and humanitarian contexts
• On combinations of components
• Lack of evidence on productive and economic impacts

3. QUESTIONS
• How do different combinations of cash plus agriculture
interventions influence:
•Protective outcomes: food security?
•Productive outcomes: promoting crop and income
diversification, increased input use, and adoption of
improved agricultural practices, increased assets?
•How do these relationships vary?:
•Weather shock exposure
•Socio-economic groups

4. CONTEXT
4 categories of rural livelihoods
1. Pastoralism (49%)
2. Agro-pastoralism in semi-arid areas, livestock herding is the dominant economic activity,
though rainfall and ecological conditions allow the cultivation of cereals, mainly maize and
sorghum (30%)
3. Riverine agriculture, cultivation of diverse crops beyond staple commodities (16%)
4. Coastal, fishing combined with pastoralism (5%)
2 main rainy seasons
 heaviest rains fall during the gu season (April to June)
 lighter and more sporadic rains falling during the deyr season (October to December)
Frequent severe shocks
 Since 2016, Somalia has faced climate shocks for eight consecutive agricultural seasons (FAO,
2020)
 Locusts' invasions

5. CASH PLUS AGRICULTURE
PROGRAMME
• Started in 2016 in response to the recurrent crises faced by rural Somali’s
• Goal: to provide agricultural livelihood support to help farming households
improve their agricultural production and provide them with cash to meet
immediate basic needs in the period prior to crop harvest
• Programme description: short-term seasonal assistance
package
 Unconditional cash transfers (monthly payments)
 Multifaceted rural development livelihood interventions
 e-voucher agriculture livelihood package: a cereal, a pulse and an assorted
vegetable seed kits, basic farm tools and hermetic storage bags
 Fertilizers, irrigation hours (South), and tractor hours (North).
 Training
 Each household support for one agricultural season only

6. PROJECT TARGETING
Geographical targeting
 Villages in crisis (IPC Phase 3) or emergency (Phase 4)
 Villages not already reached by other development actors
FAO Household Targeting criteria
 Vulnerable households with more than two children under 5 years of age
 Registered/or hosted rural internally displaced persons who are unemployed and without
any regular income or assets
 Households with children who are severely or moderately malnourished
 Households with the least holding of land and/or livestock (classified as very poor in
terms of asset holding in that village)
Selection process
 Community consultation meetings with representatives of segments of community at
districts and villages levels (i.e., Council Elders, Village Elders, Community representatives)
and implementing partners

7. DATA
• Dataset: 2019 Crop and Yield Assessment (CYA)
• Survey collected to monitor the effectiveness of the programmatic
response to recurrent economic shocks suffered by the Somali
rural population
• Sample & Treatment status
• Operational issues in implementation, so at the end various
combinations of cash, inputs and training were delivered
• 1,524 households  1,287 households
2019
Frequenc
y
Percent
Non beneficiary 312 20.5
Inputs only 398 26.1
Cash + Inputs 577 37.9
Cash + Inputs +
Training
122 8
Cash only 104 6.8
Inputs + Training 10 0.7
Cash + Training 1 0.07
N 1,524 100
OUTCOMES
8 main outcomes, protective and
productive
 Food security
 FCS
 Extreme food insecurity
 Moderate and extreme food insecurity
 Assets
 Agricultural assets
 Livestock
 Agricultural practices
 No. adopted improved inputs
 No. planted crops
 Livelihood strategies
 No. income sources

8. EMPIRICAL STRATEGY & MATCHING
DIAGNOSTICS
 Inverse-Probability-Weighting regression-adjustment (IPWRA)
Matching modeling
Female head
Age of head
Head married
No. of children 0-14
No. of adults 15-64
Distance from market (Min)
Owned land, ha (ihs)
Owned land sqr
Hh reported shock: desert locust attack
Hh reported shock: flood
Age of head sqr
Female head * Age of head

9. RESULTS

10. MAIN RESULTS
Food
Consum
ption
Score
Poor
food
security
(FCS<21
)
Moderate
and poor
food
security
(FCS<35)
Agricultur
al assets
Livestoc
k (TLU)
No. of
adopted
improved
inputs
No. of
planted
crops
No. of
income
sources
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)
Input only vs. C 2.361 0.002 -0.051 0.346 0.308 0.609 0.597 0.267
(2.803) (0.036) (0.062) (0.179)* (0.156)*
*
(0.126)*** (0.164)*** (0.097)***
Cash + Input vs. C 6.822 -0.094 -0.192 0.276 -0.042 0.450 0.814 0.415
(6.401) (0.051)* (0.085)** (0.264) (0.205) (0.208)** (0.174)*** (0.088)***
Inputs + Cash vs
Inputs
-3.299 -0.012 -0.005 -0.521 -0.176 -0.061 0.311 0.184
(4.640) (0.038) (0.066) (0.282)* (0.190) (0.171) (0.198) (0.105)*
N 1,287 1,287 1,287 1,287 1,287 1,287 1,287 1,287
Comparison mean 52.880 0.119 0.285 0.011 1.318 1.365 1.740 1.298

11. HETEROGENOUS EFFECTS
 Gender: similar pattern between female and male heads but
positive impacts in the female group assets / male livestock
Positive effects on food security for cash plus for male and inputs only for female
Protective role played by the cash-plus approach during a
severe weather shock

12. CONCLUSIONS
 Positive and significant impacts on a number of
productive outcomes
 Some difference between the two treatments:
 Inputs increasewealth
 Cash plus reduces severe & moderate food insecurity and
higher levels of income diversification
 Evidence of heterogeneous impacts under conditions
of weather shocks, and between socio-economic
segments of the population
 Caveats: data constraints (spillovers, C hhs previous
beneficiaries)

13. POLICY IMPLICATIONS
 Operational performance is critical
 Delivery and predictability critical for households’ decisions about livelihood
strategies
A long-term, developmental approach would contribute overcoming some of
the operational challenges
Programme design
Cash important
From short-term to long-term support
 Humanitarian supports should be thought as tools to address temporary
shocks.
 A long-term, developmental approach should be introduced to help
households transitioning toward an out-of-poverty trajectory

14. THANK YOU!