Cash Transfers, Negative Rainfall Shocks, and Child Food Insecurity in Ethiopia

This paper examines the role that social cash transfers play in mitigating the impact of negative rainfall shocks on the welfare of children in rural households. The study employed panel data that were collected between 2012 and 2014 for the evaluation of the social cash transfer pilot programme (SCTPP) in Tigray regional state of Ethiopia. A follow-up survey was conducted in 2016 to capture the effects of a negative rainfall shock triggered by El Niño weather events, which seriously affected the countries in eastern and southern Africa between the beginning of 2015 and early 2016. The results from the Correlated Random Effects (CRE) model reveal that negative rainfall shocks cause child food insecurity. Cash transfers have positive welfare effect on children after adjusting for the impact of rainfall shocks. In the presence of negative rainfall shocks, children in the beneficiary households are better-off in their food security status than those in the comparison households. The paper provides policy-relevant findings to stimulate dialogue regarding the effectiveness of social cash transfers in enhancing rural households’ capacity to manage the detrimental welfare impacts of negative rainfall shocks on their most vulnerable members.