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Building Savings and Protecting Assets Ntongi McFadyen, Save the Children STRIVE Mozambique

Building Savings and Protecting Assets Ntongi McFadyen, Save the Children STRIVE Mozambique. STRIVE Mozambique context. Chronic food insecurity and child malnutrition Nampula Province: 63% of children under 5 chronically malnourished Smallholder , subsistence-oriented farming

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Building Savings and Protecting Assets Ntongi McFadyen, Save the Children STRIVE Mozambique

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  1. Building Savings and Protecting AssetsNtongi McFadyen, Save the ChildrenSTRIVE Mozambique

  2. STRIVE Mozambique context • Chronic food insecurity and child malnutrition • Nampula Province: • 63% of children under 5 chronically malnourished • Smallholder, subsistence-oriented farming • Hunger season from December to March

  3. Program activities • STRIVE activities implemented in 2008-2012: • Village Savings and Loan (VSL) groups • Rotating labor scheme, Ajuda Mutua (AM) • 10,000+ participants in VSL groups - potential to impact more than 25,000 children • Overlay with SANA, a USAID Title II food security program addressing nutrition, agriculture, and disaster risk reduction.

  4. Impact evaluation • To assess program effect on: • HH food security, HH and child food diversity, and child anthropometric measures • Intermediary outcomes: income, assets and social capital • Household cohort survey: • August 2009 and August 2012 • 9.1% attrition rate • 1543 program beneficiaries and residents of the comparison group area

  5. Nampula Province

  6. Qualitative follow-up study • To explore factors leading to the change in outcomes • Subsample of households from impact evaluation with measured improvements in income and social capital • In-depth interviews conducted in Nov-Dec 2012 • 43 VSL participants in Mossuril district • 42 VSL&AM participants in Angoche district

  7. Results overview (+) = better than control (-) = worse than control *aluminum panels, toilets

  8. Difference in Difference design Effect of participation = Difference for VSL group – Difference for comparison group What would have happened in absence of treatment

  9. ResultsIncome and AssetsVSL vs. Control Total per capita Income Total Durable Assets 1,000 Mzn = $38 Comparison Group Comparison Group VSL VSL †DD= .85*** (log. scale); Ratio of difference is 2.3 †DD = 1.124*** Endline (2012) Baseline (2009) † Propensity score weighted difference in difference, controlling for natural shocks

  10. ResultsFood Security and Dietary DiversityVSL vs Control Mo. Adequate Food Dietary Diversity (FCS) Comparison Group Comparison Group VSL VSL †DD = .416*** †DD = .889*** Endline (2012) Baseline (2009) † Propensity score weighted difference in difference, controlling for natural shocks

  11. Key drivers of impact • Income • Men have a central decision-making role in allocating savings and loans, although women participation is more dominant in VSL • Use of loans to invest in agriculture and business; large changes in income driven by investment in high value crops • Exposed to business training but sense of limited non-farm opportunities; no apparent income gains from livestock • Assets • Households acquiring a range of durable assets (improved toilets, aluminum and zinc panels, bicycles, clocks, radios, etc) • Given a lump sum, are durable assets an easy and low risk purchase? Or are they a preference?

  12. Key drivers of impact • Food security • Share-out almost always timed to align with the hunger season • Women referred to making food and daily needs purchases • Men referred to making agriculture and durable good investments • Members associated dietary diversity with desire for variety in tastes, rather than nutritional quality • Child anthropometrics (stunting, wasting, underweight) • Some VSL members exposed to nutrition messages through SANA; acknowledgement of different food needs among children and equity in intra-household distribution of food • In hierarchy of needs, potential investment in children’s nutrition appears to be crowded out by other priority needs

  13. Questions

  14. Implications going forward VSL - overlayed with SANA - was not enough to improve health and nutrition outcomes for children, in this context: • Would the explicit integration of health and nutrition within VSL yield nutritional outcomes for children? Is the problem not a priority or is the solution not well understood? • Would increased engagement of resource gatekeepers (men, grandmothers) change allocations to prioritize nutritional needs? VSL contributed to income, asset, and risk mitigation gains: • Would children’s nutritional needs eventually compete for finite resources as households work their way through priority expenditures? Can VSL achieve this, and under what timeframe? • What additional avenues can accelerate outcomes, e.g., readily available nutritional foods at a lower cost? In other contexts, how has VSL shown to have built and protected assets?

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