Earlier Social Protection and Short-Run Welfare after Drought in Niger
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
This study examined whether moving cash assistance forward reduced short-run welfare losses among drought-affected households in Niger. It reanalysed verified estimates from a randomized government program that assigned eligible villages to three payment schedules with the same total transfer value. The primary comparison contrasted four large payments delivered before the 2022 lean season with the traditional four-payment schedule delivered during the lean season. Food Consumption Score, monthly food consumption, and borrowing were used to assess short-run welfare and coping. Earlier large payments increased pre-lean food consumption and food security and reduced borrowing relative to the traditional schedule. These differences reversed when the traditional group began receiving transfers and largely disappeared after the lean season. Smaller monthly payments that also started early produced weaker gains, indicating that timing alone did not determine welfare effects. The findings supported a bounded Welfare Protection Window in which sufficiently large liquidity could reduce costly coping before seasonal welfare pressure peaked.
Article Details
Section
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
References
Agrawal, A., Kaur, N., Shakya, C., & Norton, A. (2020). Social assistance programs and climate resilience: Reducing vulnerability through cash transfers. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 44, 113–123. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2020.09.013
Aker, J. C. (2017). Comparing cash and voucher transfers in a humanitarian context: Evidence from the Democratic Republic of Congo. The World Bank Economic Review, 31(1), 44–70. https://doi.org/10.1093/wber/lhv055
Aker, J. C., Boumnijel, R., McClelland, A., & Tierney, N. (2016). Payment mechanisms and antipoverty programs: Evidence from a mobile money cash transfer experiment in Niger. Economic Development and Cultural Change, 65(1), 1–37. https://doi.org/10.1086/687578
Aleksandrova, M. (2020). Principles and considerations for mainstreaming climate change risk into national social protection frameworks in developing countries. Climate and Development, 12(6), 511–520. https://doi.org/10.1080/17565529.2019.1642180
Anderson, M. L. (2008). Multiple inference and gender differences in the effects of early intervention: A reevaluation of the Abecedarian, Perry Preschool, and Early Training Projects. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 103(484), 1481–1495. https://doi.org/10.1198/016214508000000841
Bazzi, S., Sumarto, S., & Suryahadi, A. (2015). It’s all in the timing: Cash transfers and consumption smoothing in a developing country. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 119, 267–288. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2015.08.010
Benjamini, Y., Krieger, A. M., & Yekutieli, D. (2006). Adaptive linear step-up procedures that control the false discovery rate. Biometrika, 93(3), 491–507. https://doi.org/10.1093/biomet/93.3.491
Burke, M., Bergquist, L. F., & Miguel, E. (2019). Sell low and buy high: Arbitrage and local price effects in Kenyan markets. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 134(2), 785–842. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjy034
Christian, P. J., Dunsch, F. A., Heirman, J., Kelley, E. M., Kondylis, F., Lane, G., Waidler, J., Adusumalli, N., Batmunkh, O., & Malhotra, K. (2025). Fast action for floods: RCT evidence on forecast-based cash transfers from Bangladesh and Nepal. NBER Working Paper 34414. https://doi.org/10.3386/w34414
Costella, C., van Aalst, M., Georgiadou, Y., Slater, R., Reilly, R., McCord, A., Holmes, R., Ammoun, J., & Barca, V. (2023). Can social protection tackle emerging risks from climate change, and how? A framework and a critical review. Climate Risk Management, 40, 100501. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crm.2023.100501
Dercon, S. (2004). Growth and shocks: Evidence from rural Ethiopia. Journal of Development Economics, 74(2), 309–329. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2004.01.001
Fink, G., Jack, B. K., & Masiye, F. (2020). Seasonal liquidity, rural labor markets, and agricultural production. American Economic Review, 110(11), 3351–3392. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20180607
Gasior, K., Wright, G., Barnes, H., & Noble, M. (2024). Adaptive social protection in Indonesia: Stress-testing the effect of a natural disaster on poverty and vulnerability. Social Policy & Administration, 58(3), 505–520. https://doi.org/10.1111/spol.12983
Haushofer, J., & Shapiro, J. (2016). The short-term impact of unconditional cash transfers to the poor: Experimental evidence from Kenya. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 131(4), 1973–2042. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjw025
Hidrobo, M., Hoddinott, J., Peterman, A., Margolies, A., & Moreira, V. (2014). Cash, food, or vouchers? Evidence from a randomized experiment in northern Ecuador. Journal of Development Economics, 107, 144–156. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2013.11.009
Hoddinott, J., Sandström, S., & Upton, J. (2018). The impact of cash and food transfers: Evidence from a randomized intervention in Niger. American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 100(4), 1032–1049. https://doi.org/10.1093/ajae/aay019
Kadir, Z. K. (2026a). Panas dan Pembunuhan: Perbandingan Kajian Iklim dan Kekerasan Mematikan (Lethal Violence) di Amerika Latin dan Asia Tenggara. JIMU: Jurnal Ilmiah Multidisipliner, 4(3), 1082–1092.
Kadir, Z. K. (2026b). Price Controls, Black markets, and Criminal Opportunities in Indonesia: A policy Analysis of Market Distortions. NIAGATRA: Journal of Business, Economics, and Policy, 1(1), 1–11.
Kakpo, A., Mills, B. F., & Brunelin, S. (2022). Weather shocks and food price seasonality in Sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from Niger. Food Policy, 112, 102347. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2022.102347
Kazianga, H., & Udry, C. (2006). Consumption smoothing? Livestock, insurance and drought in rural Burkina Faso. Journal of Development Economics, 79(2), 413–446. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2006.01.011
Lane, G. (2024). Adapting to climate risk with guaranteed credit: Evidence from Bangladesh. Econometrica, 92(2), 355–386. https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA19127
Macours, K., Premand, P., & Vakis, R. (2022). Transfers, diversification and household risk strategies: Can productive safety nets help households manage climatic variability? The Economic Journal, 132(647), 2438–2470. https://doi.org/10.1093/ej/ueac018
Mappaselleng, N. F., & Kadir, Z. K. (2026). Celah Hukum dalam Sistem Pengelolaan Limbah di Indonesia: Perspektif Green Criminology. Bina Hukum Lingkungan, 10(3), 432–450. https://doi.org/10.24970/bhl.v10i3.483
Paxson, C. H. (1993). Consumption and income seasonality in Thailand. Journal of Political Economy, 101(1), 39–72. https://doi.org/10.1086/261865
Pople, A., Premand, P., Dercon, S., Vinez, M., & Brunelin, S. (2025). The earlier the better? Cash transfers for drought response in Niger. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 11138. https://doi.org/10.1596/1813-9450-11138
Pople, A., Hill, R., Dercon, S., & Brunckhorst, B. (2026). The importance of being early? Anticipatory cash transfers for flood-affected households. The World Bank Economic Review, lhag016. https://doi.org/10.1093/wber/lhag016
Premand, P., & Stoeffler, Q. (2022). Cash transfers, climatic shocks and resilience in the Sahel. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 116, 102744. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeem.2022.102744
Sengupta, S., & Costella, C. (2023). A framework to assess the role of social cash transfers in building adaptive capacity for climate resilience. Journal of Integrative Environmental Sciences, 20(1), 2218472. https://doi.org/10.1080/1943815X.2023.2218472
Tenzing, J. D. (2020). Integrating social protection and climate change adaptation: A review. WIREs Climate Change, 11(2), e626. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.626