The effect of cash transfers and household vulnerability on food security in Zimbabwe

Abstract

We study the impact of the Zimbabwe Harmonized Social Cash Transfer (HSCT) on household food security after 12 months of implementation. We investigate determinants of food security as measured by a well-known food security scale – the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) – and as measured by value of household food consumption composed of own-production, market purchases and gifts received. We find that several dimensions of household vulnerability correlate more strongly with the food security measure than with food consumption. Labor constraints, which is a key vulnerability criterion used by the HSCT to target households, is an important predictor of the food security score but not food consumption, and its effect on food security is even larger during the lean season. Impact analysis shows that the program has had statistically significant impacts on Food Security and Diet Diversity scores but null to low impacts on food consumption. However aggregate food consumption hides dynamic activity taking place within the household where the cash is used to obtain more food from the market and rely less on food received as gifts. The cash in turn gives beneficiaries greater choice in their food basket, which improves diet diversity.

Impacts of Caregivers’ Nutrition Knowledge and Food Market Accessibility on Preschool Children’s Dietary Diversity in Remote Communities in Southeast Nigeria

“…The scale of a farm business encourages farm and production diversity [77]. It is also an important source of improved cash income, wealth, and earnings, which increases economic access to diverse foods and consumption of quality and diversified diets [44,82,[88][89][90][91].…”

Water and soil conservation techniques and food security in the northern region of Burkina Faso

“…Our findings also suggested a significant relationship between food insecurity and formal education of household head. These results imply that education is important for improving the food security status of farmers as the educated farmers were less likely to be food insecure (Li and Yu, 2010;Bhalla et al, 2018). Previous studies showed that formally educated respondents had a better food security score than those without formal education (Li and Yu, 2010;Bhalla et al, 2018).…”

“…These results imply that education is important for improving the food security status of farmers as the educated farmers were less likely to be food insecure (Li and Yu, 2010;Bhalla et al, 2018). Previous studies showed that formally educated respondents had a better food security score than those without formal education (Li and Yu, 2010;Bhalla et al, 2018). In fact, the low level of formal education is strongly associated with the probability of experiencing food insecurity (Maxwell et al, 2014).…”

“…Despite the established links by Pearson Chi-square tests between food insecurity and household characteristics like age groups of the household head, household size, income sources such as livestock sale, artisanal gold mining, remittances, vegetable production, livestock asset and household domestic asset index, logistic regression showed no significant relationship with these variables. However, it should be noted that in other studies, the age of the household head, remittances and household size have been identified as determinants of food insecurity (Vandermeersch and Naulin, 2007;Abdullah et al, 2017;Bhalla et al, 2018).…”

Show me the money

“…In ten countries in SSA (Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe), food security improved because of receiving CTs as most of the transfer income was spent on food. Most beneficiary households also improved their diet diversity (Berhane et al, 2015, Bhalla et al, 2018, Brugh et al, 2018, Carneiro et al, 2017, Case, 2004, d'Agostino et al, 2017, Handa et al, 2013b, Haushofer and Shapiro, 2016, Miller and Tsoka, 2008, OPM, 2013, 2015, Soares and Teixeira, 2010. Evidence from LA also shows that CTs increased household consumption, in particular food consumption, and households improved their diet diversity.…”