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With research staff from more than 70 countries, and offices across the globe, IFPRI provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries.

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Kinya Kaibung’a

Kinya Kaibung’a is a Research Officer with the Development Strategies and Governance Unit, based in Nairobi, Kenya. She has a keen interest in leveraging machine learning, AI, and other cutting-edge technologies to boost climate resilience and food security in smart agriculture systems.

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Since 1975, IFPRI’s research has been informing policies and development programs to improve food security, nutrition, and livelihoods around the world.

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experts

Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion

Sarim Zafar

Research Analyst

Sarim Zafar

Bio

Sarim Zafar is a Research Analyst with the Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion Unit, and is based at IFPRI-Washington, DC.

Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion

Publications

Resource thumbnail

Working Paper

The early bird gets the cash: Early notification and conditional cash transfers for secondary school

2026Leight, Jessica; Gilligan, Daniel O.; Mulford, Michael; Zafar, Sarim
Details

The early bird gets the cash: Early notification and conditional cash transfers for secondary school

What is the optimal timing for a cash transfer targeting increased secondary school enrollment? We present evidence from a randomized trial in rural Ethiopia showing a CCT increases enrollment and reduces child marriage. The largest effects are observed for youth offered the transfer a year prior to their (potential) matriculation; in this cohort, there is also a significant in-crease in the probability students pass the primary school leaving exam. By contrast, reduced treatment effects are observed for prior dropouts, and a generalized random forest analysis suggests this primarily reflects different observable characteristics (lower academic performance) among this sub-sample.

Year published

2026

Authors

Leight, Jessica; Gilligan, Daniel O.; Mulford, Michael; Zafar, Sarim

Citation

Leight, Jessica; Gilligan, Daniel O.; Mulford, Michael; and Zafar, Sarim. 2026. The early bird gets the cash: Early notification and conditional cash transfers for secondary school. IFPRI Discussion Paper 2421. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/183379

Country/Region

Ethiopia

Keywords

Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Eastern Africa; Cash Transfers; Social Protection; Education; Youth; Secondary Education

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Record type

Working Paper

Resource thumbnail

Brief

The effectiveness of cash and cash plus interventions on livelihoods outcomes: Evidence from a systematic review and meta-analysis

2024Leight, Jessica; Hirvonen, Kalle; Zafar, Sarim
Details

The effectiveness of cash and cash plus interventions on livelihoods outcomes: Evidence from a systematic review and meta-analysis

Cash transfer programs have become increasingly popular tools for fighting chronic poverty and food insecurity in lowand middle-income countries (Fiszbein and Schady, 2009; USAID, 2022; WFP, 2023). Cash transfers offer recipients flexibility by permitting them to finance immediate consumption needs or to increase future income streams through investments and savings. Moreover, these programs are generally feasible to implement and scale across diverse contexts. While studies consistently show cash transfers effectively reduce poverty in the short term, the evidence on their long-term impact is less clear.

Year published

2024

Authors

Leight, Jessica; Hirvonen, Kalle; Zafar, Sarim

Citation

Leight, Jessica; Hirvonen, Kalle; and Zafar, Sarim. 2024. The effectiveness of cash and cash plus interventions on livelihoods outcomes: Evidence from a systematic review and meta-analysis. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/149161

Keywords

Cash Transfers; Data; Consumption; Livelihoods

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Project

Fragility, Conflict, and Migration

Record type

Brief

Resource thumbnail

Working Paper

The effectiveness of cash and cash plus interventions on livelihoods outcomes: Evidence from a systematic review and meta-analysis

2024Leight, Jessica; Hirvonen, Kalle; Zafar, Sarim
Details

The effectiveness of cash and cash plus interventions on livelihoods outcomes: Evidence from a systematic review and meta-analysis

Over the last 20 years, a burgeoning scholarly literature has analyzed the effects of cash transfer and cash plus interventions in a wide range of contexts and using a range of empirical designs. We conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis to estimate the pooled effect of any cash or cash plus intervention on livelihoods-related outcomes (consumption, income and labor supply), ultimately compiling 305 different treatment estimates from 155 treatment arms in 104 studies (and in 43 countries). Using random effects and multilevel models, our findings suggest that cash transfer programming is associated with an increase of between $1 and $2 in monthly household consumption and income per $100 in cumulative transfers, an effect that persists for a period of roughly three years (inclusive of the period of program implementation); this effect is meaningfully larger (as much as $4 larger) for cash transfer programs that also include a cash plus livelihoods intervention. There are no significant effects observed on labor force participation. We also present a range of estimates capturing the longer-term (cumulative) effects of cash transfers on consumption under alternate assumptions.

Year published

2024

Authors

Leight, Jessica; Hirvonen, Kalle; Zafar, Sarim

Citation

Leight, Jessica; Hirvonen, Kalle; and Zafar, Sarim. 2024. The effectiveness of cash and cash plus interventions on livelihoods outcomes: Evidence from a systematic review and meta-analysis. IFPRI Discussion Paper 2262. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/148881

Keywords

Cash Transfers; Consumption; Income; Livelihoods

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Project

Fragility, Conflict, and Migration

Record type

Working Paper