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Behavioral Change Promotion, Cash Transfers and Early Childhood Development : Experimental Evidence from a Government Program in a Low-Income Setting

Author

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  • Premand,Patrick
  • Barry,Oumar

Abstract

Signs of development delays and malnutrition are widespread among young children in low-income settings. Social protection programs such as cash transfers are increasingly combined with behavioral change promotion or parenting interventions to improve early childhood development. This paper disentangles the effects of behavioral change promotion from cash transfers to poor households through an experiment embedded in a government program in Niger. The study is also designed to identify within-community spillovers from the behavioral change intervention. The findings show that behavioral change promotion affects a range of practices related to nutrition, health, stimulation, and child protection. Local spillovers on parenting practices are also found. Moderate gains in children's socio-emotional development are observed, but there are no improvements in anthropometrics or cognitive development. Cash transfers alone do not alter parenting practices or improve early childhood development. Cash transfers improve welfare and food security at the household level, and the behavioral intervention induces intra-household reallocations toward children.

Suggested Citation

  • Premand,Patrick & Barry,Oumar, 2020. "Behavioral Change Promotion, Cash Transfers and Early Childhood Development : Experimental Evidence from a Government Program in a Low-Income Setting," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9368, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9368
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    Cited by:

    1. Chistophe Muller & Nouréini Sayouti Souleymane, 2025. "Perverse Impact of Agro-Pastoral Policies on the Dietary Intake of Agro-Pastoralists," AMSE Working Papers 2508, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    2. Nyqvist, Martina Björkman & Jayachandran, Seema & Zipfel, Céline, 2024. "A mother’s voice: Impacts of spousal communication training on child health investments," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    3. repec:osf:osfxxx:dnc2r_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Premand, Patrick & Stoeffler, Quentin, 2022. "Cash transfers, climatic shocks and resilience in the Sahel," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    5. Barrera,Oscar & Macours,Karen & Premand,Patrick & Vakis,Renos, 2020. "Texting Parents about Early Child Development : Behavioral Changes and Unintended Social Effects," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9492, The World Bank.
    6. Patrick Premand & Dominic Rohner, 2024. "Cash and Conflict: Large-Scale Experimental Evidence from Niger," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 6(1), pages 137-153, March.
    7. Lenel, Friederike & Priebe, Jan & Satriawan, Elan & Syamsulhakim, Ekki, 2022. "Can mHealth campaigns improve CCT outcomes? Experimental evidence from sms-nudges in Indonesia," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    8. Patrick Premand & Pascale Schnitzer, 2021. "Efficiency, Legitimacy, and Impacts of Targeting Methods: Evidence from an Experiment in Niger," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 35(4), pages 892-920.
    9. Pople, Ashley Charlotte & Premand, Patrick & Dercon,Stefan & Vinez, Margaux & Brunelin, Stephanie, 2025. "The Earlier the Better? Cash Transfers for Drought Response in Niger," Policy Research Working Paper Series 11138, The World Bank.
    10. Peterson-Wilhelm, Bailey & Schwab, Benjamin & Hemachandra, Dilini & Headey, Derek, 2025. "Social Desirability Bias in Program Evaluation: The Case of a Childhood Nutrition Program in Sri Lanka," 2025 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2025, Denver, CO 360988, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    11. Leight, Jessica & Hirvonen, Kalle & Zafar, Sarim, 2024. "The effectiveness of cash and cash plus interventions on livelihoods outcomes: Evidence from a systematic review and meta-analysis," OSF Preprints dnc2r, Center for Open Science.
    12. Björkman Nyqvist, Martina & Jayachandran, Seema & Zipfel, Céline, 2023. "A Mother’s Voice: Impacts of Spousal Communication Training on Child Health Investments," CEPR Discussion Papers 17916, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Priyanka, Sadia & Sara, Raisa, 2025. "Intergenerational effect of an education stipend program on child development: Evidence from Bangladesh," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 248(C).
    14. Akgündüz, Yusuf Emre & Akyol, Pelin & Aydemir, Abdurrahman B. & Demirci, Murat & Kirdar, Murat Güray, 2024. "Intergenerational Effects of Compulsory Schooling Reform on Early Childhood Development in a Middle-Income Country," IZA Discussion Papers 17249, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Heaney, Tiarnán, 2024. "From pensions to pupils? Schooling, resource constraints and old age pensions in Ireland 1901-11," QUCEH Working Paper Series 24-09, Queen's University Belfast, Queen's University Centre for Economic History.

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    Keywords

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    JEL classification:

    • I15 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Economic Development
    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

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