Does nutrition-sensitive social protection build long-term resilience? Experimental evidence from Bangladesh

Evidence shows that cash transfer and in-kind transfer programs increase food security while interventions are ongoing, including during or immediately after shocks. Less is known about whether receipt of transfers under these programs can have protective effects for household food security against shocks that occur several years after interventions end.

We study the effects of a transfer program implemented as a cluster-randomized controlled trial in rural Bangladesh from 2012 to 2014 – the Transfer Modality Research Initiative (TMRI) – on food security in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. We assess TMRI’s impacts at three post-program time points: before the shock (2018), amidst the shock (2021), and after the immediate effects of the shock (2022).

We find that TMRI had protective effects on household food security during and after the pandemic, but program design features ‘mattered’: positive impacts were only seen in the treatment arm that combined cash transfers with nutrition behavior change communication (‘Cash+BCC’).

Available at: https://doi.org/10.55158/DEEPWP25