The Impacts of Cash on Resilience: Evidence from Lesotho and Malawi by Frank Otchere

1. The impacts of cash on resilience: Evidence
from Lesotho and Malawi
Frank Otchere
Transfer Project Workshop
June 21, 2023
Nairobi

2. What is resilience? “Development resilience”?

3. Some definitions of resilience
Resilience Alliance
(2002)
•…capacity of a
system to absorb
disturbances and
reorganize while
undergoing change
DFID (2011)
• ability of countries,
communities and
households to
manage change, by
maintaining or
transforming living
standards in the
face of shocks
Barrett and Constas
(2014)
• the capacity over
time of a person,
household or other
aggregate unit to
avoid poverty in
the face of various
stressors and in the
wake of myriad
shocks

4. Bottom line
1. Resiliency is the capacity to manage lifetime shocks without
compromising long term development goals – at least avoiding
poverty and food insecurity when faced with a shock
2. Shocks could be household specific [idiosyncratic] or
widespread [covariate]
3. A more resilient household will adopt positive coping
mechanisms when faced with a shock

5. Building the resilience of [households] involves building
their capacity to:
REPARE FOR
• Minimize
vulnerability
and build
coping
capacity
COPE WITH
• Minimize
the
immediate
impact
when
shocks occur
ADAPT TO
• Reduce
vulnerability
to future
shocks

6. Measuring resilience is not an easy task
- Two main theory based empirical approaches to resilience
measurement:
- Cisse and Barrett (2018) – using a conditional moments-based approach
- FAO RMTWG (2014,2016,2018) – RIMA RCI based on structural equation
model built on four pillars:
- Access to basic services
- Access to social safety nets
- Adaptive capacity
- Assets

7. The RIMA RCI framework
- Structurally links the background factors to outcomes
- Important to note that the outcomes do not
include coping strategies

8. Validity of the RCI, and cash transfer impacts
- Transfer project studies in Lesotho and Malawi have assessed
whether:
- The RCI is a valid measure of resilience:
- Are more resilient households at time A more likely to adopt positive coping
strategies at time B if they experience shocks between times A and B?
- If cash transfers have positive impact on resilience as measured with
the RCI
- Do households participating in a cash transfer program get better on the RCI over
time?

9. Good news: we show that the RCI is a valid measure
of resilience, and that cash transfers have positive
impact on resilience
0
.005
.01
.015
.02
0 20 40 60 80 100
RCI
BL-C BL-T
0
.005
.01
.015
.02
0 20 40 60 80 100
RCI
EL-C EL-T

10. Conclusions
 We show that large scale unconditional government cash transfer
programmes – with the objective of short-term protection – also
strengthen household resilience
Social protection should be an integral component of the
resilience building toolbox
 The RCI resilience measure predicts future coping strategies
making it a viable option for targeting / early warning/ profiling
We should access the validity of some of the PMT
scores widely used to determine eligibility for

11. Asante Sana!
THANK YOU
- Building Resilience through Social Protection: Evidence from Malawi
(tandfonline.com)
- Full article: Evaluating Program Impact on Resilience: Evidence from Lesotho’s
Child Grants Programme (tandfonline.com)

13. • Low consumption
• Low resilience
Potential outcomes of CT on resilience and consumption
• Low consumption
• High resilience
• High consumption
• Low resilience
• High consumption
• High resilience
Resilience
Consumption
A
B
C
D