ID: 1690
Presenting Author: Waounde DIOP
Session: 626 - Disasters, Conflict and Impact Assessment: What is up, what is down, what is coming around?
Status: pending
This study assesses gendered impacts of cash transfers on food security and resilience in crisis-prone Senegal, highlighting the need for integrated, gender-sensitive social protection strategies.
In northern Senegal's semi-arid areas, a combination of recurring climate shocks and entrenched structural poverty leads to chronic food insecurity. This paper axamines how specifically focused cash transfers, specifically the Programme National de Bourses de Sécurité Familiale (PNBSF), shapes household resilience during periods of crisis, with an emphasis on the gendered impact. We apply a double difference-in-differences approach, using nationally representative panel data. The analysis includes a gender interaction term, in order to isolate the specific effects of PNBSF on women's food security and decision-making autonomy. The analysis shows that while short-term food security gains are evident for PNBSF beneficiaries, gains are not sustainable in the long term. Female-headed households have stronger resilience outcomes, implying that targeting households based on gender improves effectiveness. However, impact disposal potential remains limited due to a poor institutional coordination. This research will argue for the need to assess social protection not only through an economic lens, but one which takes into account relational and institutional forces. It presents a multi-level approach for assessment of resilience-building interventions in crisis-pron. In contexts that are fragile and vulnerable to climate change, impact assessment approaches must extend beyond economic indicators to incorporate gender, governance, and intra-household related dynamics. This research underlines the need for integrated social protection approaches that bring together cash transfers with
Academic Researcher in development economics, specialising in impact assessment of public policies in fragile contexts, with field experience in agricultural economics, food security and institutional