This study investigates the determinants and characteristics of women’s income in Mali. Malian men and women do not entirely pool their incomes within the household, and women’s income is particularly important in influencing child health and nutritional outcomes. The study estimates two different models: an income determinants model and a model that describes different categories of women based on their income-generating activities. Results from model 1 show that women in the irrigated rice zone have the highest incomes, ceteris paribus, followed by women in the coarse grains zone. The cotton zone produces the lowest women’s incomes, despite having the highest men’s and household income levels. Other significant determinants include the women’s age, being married to the head of the household, the composition of the household and asset levels. In the second model, different income-generating activities have different impacts on incomes, depending on the region in which the women live. Women in the cotton and coarse grains zones receive the highest marginal benefit from participating in the sale of wild products, such as shea butter, but not in the irrigated area, where more profitable agricultural activities exist for women. The results imply that agricultural growth and higher household incomes do not automatically lead to gender equity or better welfare for women and children. In the cotton zone, particularly, complementary interventions are needed to counteract the negative impact of cotton production on women’s incomes.

This paper reports on the results of testing hypotheses about factors thought to be positively correlated with better nutritional status for rural children in Mali. These factors include:

1. Higher agricultural incomes and/or household wealth
2. More educated parents
3. Mothers who use recommended feeding and childcare practices
4. Availability and use of well staffed health facilities
5. Parents who are knowledgeable about prevalent childhood diseases
6. Use of recommended hygiene and sanitation practices
7. Parents’ age, health and genetic attributes
8. Location (type of agricultural production system, level of infrastructure, etc.)

Preliminary results suggest that improvements in health center coverage (e.g., reducing the average distance to a health center from 20 to 10 kilometers) and more diversity in complementary foods after six months of age (two or more different foods during a 24 hour period) have the potential to significantly improve standardized height for age scores. Other factors of importance are mothers’ incomes, prenatal visits, and parents’ standardized heights (reflecting either genetic traits or generations of poor nutrition).

The Project on Linkages between Child Nutrition and Agricultural Growth (LICNAG) seeks to identify means of strengthening positive linkages between agricultural development and factors that influence child health and nutritional status. LICNAG is surveying rural households in Mali was to understand the positive and negative repercussions that agricultural-led growth has on children’s health and nutritional status. This report on preliminary survey findings describes child health and nutritional status across three agricultural zones in Mali. Early results of the survey indicate that increasing access to food and income requires measures to reduce price and climatic risk (e.g., water management and transport infrastructure, and diversification of incomes) for agricultural households.

A Policy Synthesis of the findings is available here. The full report can be accessed below.

In 2007, UNICEF and Save the Children UK convened a meeting entitled Advancing Policy Relevant Research Around Social Welfare Services. In response to the 2007 meeting, UNICEF Child Protection section commissioned three reviews examining the relationship between cash transfers and social welfare services.

In April 2009, social welfare and cash transfer experts gathered in Carmona, Spain to examine the results of the reviews. Meeting delegates explored the findings with a specific focus on integration of social welfare services and cash transfers in Ghana, Chile, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Kenya.

The reviews examined evidence which summarized the following:

• the efficacy of cash transfer initiatives on child outcomes including child protection outcomes;
• the potential contact opportunities within cash transfer programmes for linkages with social welfare services;
• common barriers and challenges faced by beneficiaries across a range of cash transfer programmes;
• the role of the education sector in providing social welfare services where school attendance is an explicit outcome objective in the provision of cash.

The participants determined that There is good evidence on the efficacy of cash transfers on child outcomes, yet it is clear that cash transfers are not enough on their own to respond to child poverty. This and other findings were compiled into a joint communiqué issued by the meeting participants, which can be downloaded by following the link below.

The systematic reviews, alongside advocacy briefs on what the findings mean for policy, practice and future research, will be published in a special issue of the Vulnerable Children and Youth Studies journal later this year.

This discussion paper presents an analytical review of the design and implementation of Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) schemes, particularly in Latin America; juxtaposing it with those schemes in India that have similar characteristics. The objective is to promote informed discussion among various stakeholders on the desirability and feasibility of introducing multi-sectoral CCT schemes for alleviating human poverty and achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in India. In India, food security issues coupled with the global financial crisis have made achieving the MDGs particularly complicated.

The paper focuses on many indicators at the heart of CYES efforts, including income inequality, primary and secondary education, and child labor, which often accompanies lowered household productivity.

Project HOPE’s orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) program, implemented in Mozambique and Namibia, uses a low literacy “Parenting Map” comprised of measurable child-specific indicators across all domains of critical needs for OVC. This map is designed to be used at the household level by project staff and volunteers as a road map for showing a quick but comprehensive snapshot of each child’s well-being, which identifies service needs and provides immediate feedback to caregivers.

The parenting map form comprises 30 separate indicators grouped into 6 domains of service:

• health
• nutrition
• shelter/care
• education
• protection
• psycho-social

Each indicator represents a commonly desired measurable outcome for children (e.g. attending school). Each indicator is scored by the caregiver as either being completed (scored as a 3), not completed (scored as a 1), or unsure of status (scored as a 2). A map is completed on each child in the household and is designed to be left with the caregiver.

Click on the link below to download the Parenting Map, as well as a summary of the data collected between July and October 2008. The comparative results from Namibia are presented, showing the Map’s effectiveness for assessing program impact, targeting most at-risk subgroups, and guiding responses to OVC priorities, and in achieving improvements in child well-being.

This report by Save the Children emphasizes the role of cash transfers in lowering child mortality. It argues that well-designed cash transfer programs can help tackle many of the determinants of child mortality, most immediately by increasing access to healthcare and reducing malnutrition.The report draws on evidence across a number of countries to demonstrate that cash transfers have helped poor people to access food and healthcare, and to enhance the status of women (itself one of the most significant determinants of child survival). It further argues that cash transfers also have important positive economic benefits, helping to create livelihood opportunities, increase labor productivity and earnings, stimulate local markets, and cushion families from the worst effects of crises.

This report makes the case for redirecting the response to HIV and AIDS to address children’s needs more effectively. Drawing on the best body of evidence yet assembled on children affected by AIDS, it shows where existing approaches have gone off track and what should now be done, how, and by whom. The report summarizes the evidence from two years of research and analysis by the Joint
Learning Initiative on Children and HIV/AIDS (JLICA).

Focusing mainly on countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, the report examines what has worked and what hasn’t in the fight against HIV/AIDS, and emphasizes the need for HIV and AIDS services to be complemented with a social protection agenda, placing children front and center. Strengthening families, supporting collaborative action within communities, and securing the human capital of rising generation will be key elements in future efforts to end the HIV/AIDS crisis.

Click the link below to download the report in English. It is also available in French and Portuguese here.

This report reviews the evidence on conditional cash transfers (CCTs)—safety net programs that have become popular in developing countries over the last decade. It concludes that CCTs generally have been successful in reducing poverty and encouraging parents to invest in the health and education of their children.

The report looks at a range of low- and middle-income countries; large and small programs; and those that work at local, regional, and national levels. Despite differences, all CCTs transfer cash while asking beneficiaries to make prespecified investments in child education and health. Key indicators, including levels of consumption, school enrollment, and health care visits, all increased among CCT recipients. However, final outcomes such as academic achievement and height for age were more mixed.

This paper looks at the impacts of the food price crisis on developing countries and examines the direct and indirect effects on consumers and producers. It analyses the implications of these impacts on children’s wellbeing. The distinct features of childhood poverty and vulnerability mean that children are likely to be affected by the food price crisis in different ways at both the household and intra-household level.

There are two major effects of higher food prices on developing countries and their populations.

• One is direct: as the higher international prices of food push up local prices, food becomes less affordable for consumers but provides an incentive for local farmers to increase their production of foodstuffs. In both cases real incomes and welfare of the population, including the poor, are affected.
• The second is indirect: as the higher cost of imported food leads to trade deficits that depress the level of activity in the economy leading to unemployment and lower government revenues that might depress spending on public services.