Evaluation of demand-side incentives to improve education

and health outcomes: Evidence from past and ongoing

randomized interventions in Burkina Faso

Damien de Walque, The World Bank, DECRGEvidence-Based Decision-Making in Education Workshop

Africa Program for Education Impact Evaluation (APEIE)

Accra, Ghana May 10-14 2010

Two different programs, two different impact evaluations

School feeding programs: school canteens vs. take home rations in the Sahel region. Impact evaluation is completed.

Conditional and Unconditional Cash Transfers in the Nahouri Province.Impact evaluation is ongoing.

Impact evaluation of School Feeding Programs :

Evidence from a Randomized Trial in Burkina

Faso

Harounan Kazianga (Oklahoma State University)Damien de Walque (World Bank)

Harold Alderman (World Bank)

Impact evaluation summary

Evaluation of two school feeding schemes in the Sahel region of rural Burkina Faso.

School meals and take-home rationsThe programs are run by the World Food

Program (WFP)Outcomes of interest are enrollment,

attendance, learning outcomes, child labor and child health, including nutritional status.

School meals

First scheme: students are served lunch each time they attend school. Both boys and girls.

Annual transfer per student, including operating cost (administration, distribution, cooking):

- 41.46 USD per student per year- Average number of students per household: 0.81- Annual program cost per household: 33.58 USD- Annual program cost per adult: 7.15 USD

Take Home Rations

Second scheme: students (girls only) receive a take home ration (10kg of cereal flour) each month, conditional on 90% of attendance

Annual transfer per student, including operating cost (administration, distribution):

- 51.37 USD per student per year- Average number of female students per household: 0.43- Annual program cost per household: 22.09 USD- Annual program cost per adult: 4.70 USD

Experimental design

Experimental design

Experimental, prospective randomized design: villages are randomly assigned to treatment and control groups.

Data are collected before and after the interventions are rolled out.

Identification strategy relies entirely on the random assignment of the villages to treatment and control groups.

Because of the random assignment, estimated program impact is interpreted as a causal

Interventions started in October 2006 and ran through June 2007. All results are based on one academic year.

At baseline: No significant differences across groups. Randomized assignment was successful.

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

Variable

Meals THR Control Difference with

control Meals THR

Enrolled

0.281 0.241 0.243 0.039 -0.001

[0.033] [0.032] [0.025] [0.042] [0.041]

weight (kg)

23.135 23.397 22.747 0.388 0.650

[0.682] [0.706] [0.631] [0.929] [0.947]

height (cm)

125.627 125.542 124.941 0.686 0.601

[1.020] [1.315] [1.362] [1.702] [1.893]

Body mass index 14.378 14.569 14.331 0.047 0.238

[0.269] [0.192] [0.201] [0.336] [0.278]

Weight-for-age (6-60 months) -2.202 -2.521 -2.394 0.192 -0.126

[0.172] [0.159] [0.178] [0.248] [0.238]

Height-for-age (6-60 months) -2.351 -2.086 -2.317 -0.034 0.231

[0.152] [0.111] [0.146] [0.211] [0.184]

Weight-for-height (6-60 m.) -0.786 -1.125 -0.903 0.117 -0.222

[0.143] [0.108] [0.156] [0.212] [0.190]

Both programs increase new enrollment among girls by about 5 to 6 percent.

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) 6-15 old 6-12 old

All Boys Girls All Boys Girls Canteens 0.016 -0.016 0.049 0.012 -0.038 0.064

[0.019] [0.028] [0.025]** [0.023] [0.034] [0.031]** Rations 0.045 n.a. 0.056 0.050 n.a. 0.065

[0.018]** [0.025]** [0.022]** [0.031]** Follow-up -0.152 -0.159 -0.147 -0.177 -0.177 -0.179

[0.014]*** [0.020]*** [0.019]*** [0.017]*** [0.025]*** [0.023]*** Girls -0.040 -0.041

[0.007]*** [0.009]*** Cst 0.187 0.196 0.137 0.198 0.208 0.145

[0.012]*** [0.017]*** [0.016]*** [0.014]*** [0.019]*** [0.017]*** Obs. 8072 4021 4051 6282 3151 3131 R-sq. 0.11 0.12 0.11 0.10 0.12 0.10

Key findings

Both school meals and take home rations increase new enrollment among girls by about 5 to 6 percentage points.

Other results

1) School absenteeism

2) Child labor

3) Nutritional status of children

Findings (2): absenteeism and child labor

The interventions caused absenteeism to increase in households who are low in child labor supply while absenteeism decreased for households which have a relatively large child labor supply.

The interventions also led to an adjustment in child labor: shift from on farm labor and off-farm productive labor to more domestic tasks.

Findings (3): Nutritional status of children

School feeding had a positive impact on pre-school age children nutritional status, but not on school age children

For younger siblings age 5 and under, take-home rations increased weight-for-age for boys and girls taken jointly and boys taken separately. The school meals intervention has increased weight-for-age for boys.

The impact occurred essentially on boys, and not on girls

Evaluating the impact of conditional and unconditional cash

transfers in rural Burkina Faso

A collaboration between the SP-CNLS/IST (Government of Burkina Faso) and the

World Bank

Objectives

Evaluate the impact of different interventions on the health, the education and the welfare of vulnerable children. More specifically:

1) Compare different mechanisms to support vulnerable households?

2) Compare the impact and the cost-efficiency of conditional vs. unconditional cash transfers.

3) Does the gender of the recipient of the transfer makes a difference? Mother vs. Father.

Impact evaluation design

Compare 5 groups of villages in the Nahouri Province (Center-South, border with Ghana. Gross Primary Enrollment rate: 44%, Gross Secondary enrollment rate : 8,2%)

Random allocation of villages in to the 5 groups (done in May 2008).

Baseline study, fielded May-July 20081st follow-up study at the end of school year

2008-9.2nd follow-up study at the end of school year

2009-10.

1st group: Unconditional cash transfers (UCT) to the mother

In the eligible and selected households, payment of an UCT for each child under 15.

Amount varies with age.Transfer is quarterly.Transfer is paid to the mother.In 15 villages, covering 500 households.

2nd group: Unconditional cash transfers (UCT) to the father

In the eligible and selected households, payment of an UCT for each child under 15.

Amount varies with age.Transfer is quarterly.Transfer is paid to the father.In 15 villages, covering 500 households.

3rd group: Conditional cash transfers (CCT) to the mother

In the eligible and selected households, payment of a CCT for each child under 15.

Amount varies with age and school level. From 0 - 6, the transfer is conditional to visiting

the health center. From 7 - 15, it is conditional to school

registration and attendance (at least 90%)Transfer is quarterly.Transfer is paid to the mother.In 15 villages, covering 500 households.

4th group: Conditional cash transfers (CCT) to the father

In the eligible and selected households, payment of a CCT for each child under 15.

Amount varies with age and school level. From 0 - 6, the transfer is conditional to visiting

the health center. From 7 - 15, it is conditional to school

registration and attendance (at least 90%)Transfer is quarterly.Transfer is paid to the father.In 15 villages, covering 500 households.

5th group: control group

No cash transfer during the impact evaluation.

Random allocation of villages in to the 5 groups (done in May 2008).

In 15 villages

Household selection (Done in May 2008)

Eligibility based on poverty criteria or presence of orphans and vulnerable children (OVC).

Poverty targeting based on a list of durable assets correlated with household consumption in the most recent LSMS-type survey.

Among the eligible households, random selection, within the villages, of the beneficiaries of the transfers.

The transfers are limited to children present in the household at the beginning of the project.

Conditionality in the CCT groups

From 0 - 6, the transfer is conditional to visiting the health center.

From 7 - 15, it is conditional to school registration and attendance (at least 90%)

Verification mechanism through an attendance booklet (both at the health center and the school levels)

Unannounced controls.

Transfer amounts

1 US$ = 500 CFA Francs, GDP capita: $440UCT:

0-6: 1000 CFA/quarter or 4000 CFA/year7-10: 2000 CFA/quarter or 8000 CFA/year11-15: 4000 CFA/quarter or 16000 CFA/year

CCT:0-6: 1000 CFA/quarter or 4000 CFA/year2000 CFA/quarter or 8000 CFA/year for grades 1-4 11-15: 4000 CFA/quarter or 16000 CFA/year for

grades 5-10

ImplementationRandom allocation of villages in to the 5 groups

and selection of eligible households (done in May 2008).

Baseline study, fielded May-July 2008.First payments made in October-November

2008.Currently finished 7th payment rounds (April

2010) and preparing last payment round (June 2010).

1st follow-up study at the end of school year 2008-9. Currently analyzed.

2nd follow-up study at the end of school year 2009-10.

Thank you !