Cash Transfer Evaluation Design in Northern Kenya

The Hunger safety net programme (HSNP) is an unconditional cash transfer programme that aims to reduce poverty in northern Kenya by delivering regular cash transfers to beneficiary households or individuals in four counties in the arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs) of northern Kenya: Mandera, Marsabit, Turkana and Wajir. During the pilot phase approximately 300,000 beneficiaries (60,000 households) were targeted under three different targeting mechanisms. A consortium led by Oxford Policy Management (OPM) has been contracted by DFID to undertake a rigorous evaluation of the programme’s targeting effectiveness and impact based on panel data (around 5000 households) collected over three years between August 2009 and November 2012.
The impact of the HSNP has been assessed using rigorous scientific methods. Using a randomised controlled trial approach, a number of geographical areas (sub-locations) were randomly chosen to be assessed by the evaluation. These sub-locations were then randomly assigned to be either ‘treatment’ areas, where the programme began to operate straight away, or ‘control’ areas, in which the programme did not start for two years (the duration of the impact evaluation). The programme’s selection process was implemented (prior to the baseline survey) identically in both treatment and control areas. Impact was then assessed by comparing HSNP beneficiary households in treatment areas with households in control areas that were selected for the programme but who would not come into the programme for two years.
In the presentation I will focus on the design of the evaluation and only briefly touch upon the impact evaluation results.