Safety nets and natural disaster mitigation: evidence from cyclone Phailin in Odisha

Abstract

The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.

COVID‐19 lockdown and collective activities: Evidence from the world's largest self‐help group program

“…The results are also consistent with a recent evidence synthesis on women's groups and covariate shocks (such as drought, floods, or conflict‐related shocks), which found that households with exposure to women's groups had lower food insecurity, higher consumption, and higher income after weather shocks, compared to other households (Walcott et al, 2021; Demont, 2022; Christian et al, 2019; Karlan, Savonitto, Thuysbaert, & Udry, 2017; Wineman et al, 2017). While SHGs may help members absorb some shocks, group membership seldom fully mitigates the effect of the shock.…”

Response strategies for promoting gender equality in public health emergencies: a rapid scoping review

“…Geographical setting and PHE Open access Open access on microfinance interventions and financial aid (one cross-sectional, one case-control and one experimental study), [56][57][58] and one cross-sectional study evaluated uptake of a food aid programme implemented in response to several major droughts in Ethiopia. 59 The fifth study, a randomised controlled trial conducted by Bandiera et al, assessed the impact of a multicomponent intervention for young women and girls (aged 12-25 years) in the context of Ebola, featuring training on financial literacy and vocational skills, access to microfinance and other noneconomic programme components.…”

“…63 Two studies reported on dimensions of equal opportunities, specifically capturing girls' school enrolment, their numeracy and literacy levels, and the engagement of school-aged girls in income-generation activities (which can hamper their educational achievements), 31 as well as women's civic and political engagement. 71 Lastly, two studies assessed interventions on women's access to economic resources, specifically food aid membership uptake, 59 female employment, 69 and girls' financial literacy and entrepreneurial confidence, 31 and two studies focused on genderbased violence. 31 58 Figure 2 Geographical scope and intervention types of included studies.…”

“…Postcyclone civic and political engagement did not differ for women who were part of the microcredit network. 56 The microfinance programme in Ethiopia evaluated in a cross-sectional study by Doocy and colleagues showed improvements in health equity in the context of droughts. Specifically, the odds of acute malnourishment among women in control communities were three times as high (OR=3.2, 95% CI 1.1 to 9.8) compared with the odds of women who were established microfinance clients.…”

“…Causal inference about the intervention was reliable only in three studies, two of which were set up as cluster randomised controlled trials 31 52 and one as a natural experiment, exploiting variation in the intensity with which communities were hit by a cyclone as well as the staggered roll-out of a microcredit intervention. 56 Five studies relied on cohort or casecontrol designs to partly control for systematic variation in exposure to the intervention of interest, 53 61 65 68 69 and eight studies relied on cross-sectional, uncontrolled designs. 54 55 57 59 60 63 66 67 In five studies, participants were recruited based on random sampling procedures.…”