Food-based safety nets and related programs

This paper discusses the range of food-based transfers that are typically used in social safety net programs. The authors have tried to provide guidance as to the appropriate context for different kinds of programs, the necessary operational considerations in implementing them, and reasonable expectations for their effectiveness in achieving a variety of objectives. Safety net programs have the goal of assuring household income, either directly or through the provision of goods and services. However,food-based programs are usually implemented with other goals in mind, related to dietary adequacy, nutrition and health and to the increased use of social services that contribute to human capital formation. The programs discussed here include the direct provision of food and the provision of benefits that are linked to food. Because of the potential costs and distortions involved in using food-based programs, cash-based programs may be considered as the benchmark against which food-based programs should be judged. It is very difficult to generalize about the effectiveness or cost-effectiveness of different kinds of food-based safety net programs because the details of implementation-such as the size of the transfer or wage, its specific composition, the target group reached, and the severity of the problem addressed-vary so widely. It is these details, not only the choice of program, that determine both cost and impact.