College of Development Study, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Department of Project Planning and Management, Yom Post Graduate College, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
PLoS One. 2024 Apr 4;19(4):e0297780. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0297780. eCollection 2024.
The impact of Productive Safety Net Programs (PSNPs) on food security, poverty, and livelihoods has been examined in several studies. While some studies found positive impacts on food security and agricultural productivity, there are still gaps in understanding the long-term effects of these programs on poverty reduction and food security. This study aims to investigate the impact of PSNP on the livelihood of beneficiaries based on indicators including access to basic services, income, expenditure on food, adaptive capacity, and dietary diversity.
This article used quasi-experimental design and treatment effects model taking into account access to basic services, income, food expenditure, assets, adaptive capacity, and household dietary diversity as outcome variables of interest. 300 respondents were randomly selected from the population of safety net beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries in the study area. Out of the 300 respondents, 150 were selected as the treatment group, who were beneficiaries of the safety net program. The algorithms used in analysis include regression adjustment, inverse probability weighing and propensity score matching.
The study's results reveal that the PSNP has no statistically significant impact on access to basic services and income based on all three algorithms, yet it does show a significant and negative effect on food expenditure and assets. The coefficients across all three models consistently demonstrate this negative impact, underscoring its statistical significance at the conventional significance level (p = 0.05). This suggests that the PSNP leads to a reduction in food expenditure. Furthermore, the analysis highlights substantial differences between PSNP members and non-members across all three variables, with non-members having higher mean values for assets. This difference is statistically significant at the 1% level, suggesting that membership in the PSNP has a tangible impact on asset ownership. The study's mixed findings emphasize the complexities of designing effective social protection programs that can adequately address the multifaceted nature of poverty.
已有多项研究考察了生产性安全网项目（PSNPs）对粮食安全、贫困和生计的影响。尽管一些研究发现 PSNPs 对粮食安全和农业生产力有积极影响，但对于这些项目对减贫和粮食安全的长期影响，仍存在认识上的差距。本研究旨在根据获得基本服务、收入、食品支出、适应能力和饮食多样性等指标，调查 PSNP 对受益人的生计的影响。
本文采用准实验设计和处理效应模型，将获得基本服务、收入、食品支出、资产、适应能力和家庭饮食多样性作为感兴趣的结果变量。从研究区域的安全网受益人和非受益人群体中，随机抽取 300 名受访者。在 300 名受访者中，有 150 名被选为实验组，他们是安全网项目的受益者。分析中使用的算法包括回归调整、逆概率加权和倾向评分匹配。
研究结果表明，PSNP 对获得基本服务和收入没有统计学上的显著影响，基于所有三种算法，然而，它对食品支出和资产有显著的负向影响。所有三种模型的系数都一致显示出这种负面影响，在传统的显著性水平（p = 0.05）下具有统计学意义。这表明 PSNP 导致了食品支出的减少。此外，分析突出了 PSNP 成员和非成员在所有三个变量上的显著差异，非成员的资产均值更高。这一差异在 1%的水平上具有统计学意义，表明 PSNP 成员身份对资产所有权有实质性影响。研究的混合结果强调了设计有效社会保护计划的复杂性，这些计划可以充分应对贫困的多面性。
