The impact of cash transfers on Syrian refugees in Lebanon: Evidence from a multidimensional regression discontinuity design

Salti, Nisreen; Chaaban, Jad; Moussa, Wael; Irani, Alexandra; Mokdad, Rima Al; Jamaluddine, Zeina; Ghattas, Hala

doi:10.1016/j.jdeveco.2021.102803

Cited by 13 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…For human capital outcomes, such as nutrition (food security, dietary diversity, and caloric consumption), there have been mostly positive results (Özler et al 2021;Doocy and Tappis 2017;van Daalen et al 2022;Ecker et al 2019;Salti et al 2022). Similar positive findings were observed for education outcomes (Moussa et al 2022;Aygün et al 2021;Salti et al 2022) and child labor-related outcomes (Moussa et al 2022;Aygün et al 2021;Salti et al 2022). However, fewer impact evaluations have examined their performance in fragile contexts and for displaced populations and to our knowledge, there is no evidence from quantitative impact evaluations in the particular context of Venezuelan migration crisis.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 85%

“…Cash transfers have been found to increase access to basic necessities, such as housing (Hagen-Zanker et al 2018;Aker 2017), and improve the economic well-being and inequality (Özler et al 2021;Doocy and Tappis 2017;Aygün et al 2021;Salti et al 2022). For human capital outcomes, such as nutrition (food security, dietary diversity, and caloric consumption), there have been mostly positive results (Özler et al 2021;Doocy and Tappis 2017;van Daalen et al 2022;Ecker et al 2019;Salti et al 2022). Similar positive findings were observed for education outcomes (Moussa et al 2022;Aygün et al 2021;Salti et al 2022) and child labor-related outcomes (Moussa et al 2022;Aygün et al 2021;Salti et al 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 91%

“…Findings from existing evidence are promising, but geographically sparse. Cash transfers have been found to increase access to basic necessities, such as housing (Hagen-Zanker et al 2018;Aker 2017), and improve the economic well-being and inequality (Özler et al 2021;Doocy and Tappis 2017;Aygün et al 2021;Salti et al 2022). For human capital outcomes, such as nutrition (food security, dietary diversity, and caloric consumption), there have been mostly positive results (Özler et al 2021;Doocy and Tappis 2017;van Daalen et al 2022;Ecker et al 2019;Salti et al 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

An impact assessment of EAMDA’s banana initiative to increase technology adoption by smallholder farmers in Kenya

Chowdhury,

Mariara,

Murigi

et al. 2023

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 85%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 91%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

An impact assessment of EAMDA’s banana initiative to increase technology adoption by smallholder farmers in Kenya

Chowdhury,

Mariara,

Murigi

et al. 2023

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“…Impact of aid in humanitarian settings. Evidence on the impact and effectiveness of humanitarian and development support in conflict-affected settings is also increasing in the past years, but has mainly focuses on the impacts of cash or food transfers (Altındag & O'Connell, 2023;Bedoya et al, 2019;Kurdi, 2021;Schwab, 2019;Salti et al, 2022;Tranchent et al, 2019;Tusiime et al, 2013) rather than on complex agricultural interventions (Brück & d'Errico, 2019). Moreover, impacts on welfare and behaviour are often assumed rather than tested and quantified, and systematic learning for programme design and modalities is rare (Martin-Shields & Stojetz, 2019;Brück et al, 2019b).…”

Section: Contribution To the Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Existing studies focus mostly on Syrian refugees (or on others affected by the war) than on Syrians residing in or returning to Syria. There are also a number of rigorous impact evaluations conducted, mostly about interventions for Syrian refugees in Lebanon (e.g., Altındağ & O'Connell, 2023;De Hoop et al, 2018;Salti et al, 2022). However, we are not aware of a single impact evaluation having taken place in Syria since the start of the war (or, indeed, before), using rigorous methods for causal identification and accounting for the specific Syrian context.…”

Section: The Impact Of the War In Syriamentioning

confidence: 99%

Seeds for recovery: The long-term impacts of a complex agricultural intervention on welfare, behaviour and stability in Syria (SEEDS)

Baliki¹,

Weiffen²,

Daccache³

et al. 2023

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There is scarce evidence on whether and how assistance in humanitarian emergencies and conflict settings impacts household well-being and behaviour. Conducting rigorous impact evaluations in such settings poses multiple challenges in design and data collection. In SEEDS, we evaluate the impact of a complex large-scale multi-arm agricultural intervention on productivity, food security, and resilience in the context of an on-going humanitarian crisis in Syria. Specifically, we identify the causal impacts of agricultural asset transfers over various time horizons (the short-, medium-, and long-run), and across different conditions and subgroups (gender and conflict intensity) at the household-level. We evaluate the effectiveness of irrigation rehabilitation separately at the community-level. We use and combine various data sources, including a unique survey panel dataset collected over a period of four years from multiple governorates in Syria, satellite remote-sensing data, and publicly available violent conflict incidence and weather data. Our findings from using cutting-edge machine and deep learning approaches together with innovative balancing and analytical methods can be summarised as follows: For average treatment effects at the household-level, we find that the provision of agricultural asset support leads to significant improvements in food security in the short- and long-term, three years after the intervention. The positive and significant effect on food security is driven mainly by the increased consumption of healthy food items such as vegetables. In the long-run, livestock support reduces the use of harmful coping strategies households employ to deal with food shortages. Interestingly, we find that households who received vegetable kits are not just less likely to sell their productive assets in the long-term but also are less likely to marry off their young daughters or send their children to work. Overall, we find that both agricultural and livestock asset support is key to improving households’ resilience in the long-term. The irrigation rehabilitation interventions at the community-level positively affected agricultural productivity compared to the pre-intervention and pre-conflict periods. However, these effects were only significantly pronounced in the spring season. As for the heterogeneity analysis, we find that female-headed households benefit remarkably more in terms of food security in the medium-term compared to male-headed families. Moreover, households residing in areas that are moderately affected by violent conflict show stronger food security improvements compared to households from peaceful or conflict-intense settings. Overall, we draw three overarching lessons from our findings in SEEDS: First, agricultural support in protracted conflict settings effectively improves the long-term welfare and resilience of vulnerable households. In fact, the presence of an ongoing humanitarian operation acts as a social safety net if circumstances deteriorate suddenly. Second, not all interventions are equally effective, and not all households equally benefit, underscoring the need to design and implement inclusive context-specific interventions with detailed targeting. Third, methodologically, using multiple remote data sources and machine learning methods help overcome challenges in conducting rigorous impact evaluations in hard-to-reach humanitarian emergency settings.

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Short- and medium-term impacts of small-scale vegetable support on food security: evidence from Syria

Baliki,

Al Daccache,

Ghattas

et al. 2024

Food Sec.

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Small-scale agricultural and horticultural interventions play a critical role in improving nutrition and food security of vulnerable households in peaceful settings. However, scant rigorous evidence exists on the impacts and sustainability of such interventions in conflict settings. In this paper, we address this knowledge gap by analyzing the short- and medium-term impacts of a small-scale vegetable input support program involving asset transfers on food security and diets in war-time Syria. We use longitudinal panel household survey data from a quasi-experimental study collected at three rounds: before, one year, and two years after the horticultural intervention ended. We use propensity score matching and fixed-effect regression models to estimate the average treatment effects on the treated. We find that the vegetable support significantly improves food security by 21% and 19% in the short- and medium-term, respectively. More specifically, we find that the intervention significantly increased the consumption of nutrient-rich food groups such as vegetables, root tubers, fruits, eggs, pulses and nuts, milk, and oil and fats. Moreover, we find that the intervention reduces in the short-term the use of harmful coping strategies by 17%. However, this effect dissipates two years after the end of the intervention. The findings underscore the importance of small-scale vegetable support in addressing food insecurity in protracted conflict settings.

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The impact of cash transfers on Syrian refugees in Lebanon: Evidence from a multidimensional regression discontinuity design

Cited by 13 publications

References 21 publications

An impact assessment of EAMDA’s banana initiative to increase technology adoption by smallholder farmers in Kenya

An impact assessment of EAMDA’s banana initiative to increase technology adoption by smallholder farmers in Kenya

Seeds for recovery: The long-term impacts of a complex agricultural intervention on welfare, behaviour and stability in Syria (SEEDS)

Short- and medium-term impacts of small-scale vegetable support on food security: evidence from Syria

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