From 2012 to 2014, IFPRI designed and evaluated a randomized controlled trial, the Transfer Modality Research Initiative (TMRI), which sought to generate definitive evidence on which form of safety net transfer–cash or food–works best for the ultra poor in rural Bangladesh and whether impacts of these transfers change when linked to nutrition behavior change communication (BCC).
This week, IFPRI published a discussion paper using TMRI data, which centered on the importance of children’s nutritional status for subsequent human capital formation, the limited evidence of the effectiveness of social protection interventions on child nutrition, and the absence of knowledge on the intra-household impacts of cash and food transfers or how they are shaped by complementary programming. The results of the study find that only cash plus nutrition BCC had a significant impact on nutritional status, but its effect on height-forage z scores (HAZ) was large, 0.25SD. In the new discussion paper, IFPRI researchers explore the mechanisms underlying this impact. Improved diets – including increased intake of animal source foods – along with reductions in illness in the cash plus BCC treatment arm are consistent with the improvement observed in children’s HAZ.
Download IFPRI's Discussion Paper on TMRI (1.54 MB)
PC: IFPRI