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General

Study Overview

Title:

Impact Evaluation of the Family Package Programme in Cambodia

Study is 3ie funded:

No

Study ID:

RIDIE-STUDY-ID-66b5b40a9124e

Initial Registration Date:

08/09/2024

Last Update Date:

07/25/2024

Study Status:

Ongoing

Location(s):

Cambodia

Abstract:

This study is a quasi-experimental impact evaluation of the Family Package programme in Cambodia. This cash transfer programme is implemented nationwide and targeted to poor and vulnerable households using the government’s IDPoor assessment system. Beneficiary households will receive a standard transfer of 34,000 Riel per month (USD 8.30), with top-ups made based on the availability of eligibility members in the household and adherence to programme conditions. Households receive additional transfers if there is a person with one of the following characteristics in the household: a pregnant woman or child aged 0-2 years; a child enrolled in primary or secondary school up to grade twelve; a person certified as living with a disability; a person above the age of 60 years; or a person living with HIV and AIDS. Key outcome domains for the impact evaluation include poverty, household consumption, food security, household resilience to shocks, health and nutrition, education and quality of life. The study will be conducted with two waves of quantitative data collection with 24 months between waves, starting in May 2024. Additionally, there is a possibility of conducting a 12-month follow-up (midline) to gather interim data. The study sample of 2,400 households is selected with the use of a discontinuity design, by including households in a close range around the programme eligibility cut-off determined by the IDPoor score. Difference-in-differences analysis will be used to estimate impacts using baseline and follow-up surveys. The study is led by the research unit of the General Secretariat of the National Social Protection Council, in close collaboration with the UNICEF Global Office of Research and Foresight (Innocenti), UNICEF Cambodia, the World Food Programme Cambodia, World Bank Cambodia and Angkor Research and Consulting Ltd.

Registration Citation:

Ear, S., de Groot, R.,  Robinson, R., Angeles, G., Leth, P.,  & Scholz, B. (2024). Impact Evaluation of the Family Package Programme in Cambodia. Baseline Study

Categories:

Agriculture and Rural Development
Health, Nutrition, and Population
Social Protection

Additional Keywords:

Cash Transfers, Cambodia

Secondary ID Number(s):

Principal Investigator(s)

Name of First PI:

Sothy Ear; Richard de Groot; Romane Robinson

Affiliation:

General Secretariat – National Social Protection Council (GS-NSPC), Cambodia; UNICEF Innocenti, Italy; Angkor Research Consulting, Cambodia

Name of Second PI:

Gustavo Angeles; Peter Leth; Benjamin Scholz

Affiliation:

UNICEF Innocenti, Italy; UNICEF Cambodia; World Food Programme, Cambodia

Study Sponsor

Name:

UNICEF Cambodia, WFP Cambodia, and World Bank Cambodia

Study Sponsor Location:

Cambodia

Research Partner

Name of Partner Institution:

General Secretariat - National Social Protection Council (GS-NSPC); World Food Programme; Angkor Research and Consulting Ltd.

Type of Organization:

Other

Location:

Cambodia

Intervention

Intervention Overview

Intervention:

The Family Package is an integrated and shock-responsive social assistance framework designed to support poor and vulnerable families, integrating all existing and planned social assistance benefits in the country. The programme design is led by the General Secretariat - National Social Protection Council (GS-NSPC) and implemented by the National Social Assistance Fund (NSAF) and is expected to reach about 20% of the population. Poor households are identified using the government’s IDPoor system which employs a proxy-means test to classify households as Poor 1 (very poor), Poor 2 (poor) or at-risk (not poor but at-risk of falling in poverty). Households identified as Poor 1 or Poor 2 receive a standard monthly transfer of 34,000 riel (US$ 8.30), with additional top ups based on having an eligible member meeting one of the following characteristics: a pregnant woman or child aged 0-2 years; a child enrolled in primary or secondary school up to grade twelve; a person certified as living with a disability; a person above the age of 60 years; or a person living with HIV and AIDS. Most payments are distributed monthly, except those for pregnant women and children under two years old, which are linked to certain ANC and PNC visits. Scholarships are distributed every quarter instead of monthly. Payments are disbursed using transfers to a household-linked account at Wing, a financial service provider.

Theory of Change:

The Family Package targets a wide range of households with varying levels and sources of vulnerability. The Theory of Change of the programme has different change pathways for different types of households. For pregnant women and young children, the FP is expected to increase the use of healthcare services by incentivizing the uptake of ANC, institutional delivery and PNC. Scholarships to school-going children are expected to increase the use of education services by increasing enrolment in school. Households with a person with a disability, an elderly or persons living with HIV/ AIDS are expected to have increased access to relevant services and improved bargaining power of vulnerable individuals in the household. More generally, the cash transfer is expected to increase household income which improves the household’s ability to meet its needs. As a consequence of these immediate outcomes, the programme expects to achieve improved nutrition, health, education uptake and improved household power dynamics, contributing to improved productivity and better coping ability against shocks in the long-term. Ultimately, the programme expects to contribute to a reduction in poverty, vulnerability, and inequality in Cambodia.

Multiple Treatment Arms Evaluated?

No

Implementing Agency

Name of Organization:

National Social Assistance Fund (NSAF), Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation (MoSVY), Cambodia.

Type of Organization:

Public Sector, e.g. Government Agency or Ministry

Program Funder

Name of Organization:

Royal Government of Cambodia

Type of Organization:

Public Sector, e.g. Government Agency or Ministry

Intervention Timing

Intervention or Program Started at time of Registration?

Yes

Start Date:

05/26/2024

End Date:

Evaluation Method

Evaluation Method Overview

Primary (or First) Evaluation Method:

Difference in difference/fixed effects

Other (not Listed) Method:

Additional Evaluation Method (If Any):

Regression discontinuity

Other (not Listed) Method:

Method Details

Details of Evaluation Approach:

This is a quasi-experimental study using the identification of poor households (IDPoor) to construct a treatment and comparison group. IDPoor classifies households as IDPoor 1, IDPoor 2, at-risk or non-poor based on their poverty scores. We use data from recently assessed households (since October 2022) to select a treatment group with poverty scores just below the poverty line and a comparison group with scores just above the poverty line. These households are likely to be very similar and should not have benefitted yet from social assistance support in the past. The IDPoor households will receive cash transfers through the Family Package programme, but those above the poverty line will not. Based on the power calculations and budget availability, the sample size for the study is 2,400 households, evenly split between the two groups. The sample is geographically representative of the five zones in Cambodia (Tonle Sap, Coast, Plateau/Mountain, Plain and Phnom Penh). Following a two-step approach and stratified by rural/ urban locations, a total of 120 eligible villages are randomly selected from nine provinces with the largest number of IDPoor households. Households are selected in the sample by sorting the poverty scores in ascending order for the comparison group and in descending order for the treatment group, and selecting the first 1,200 households on either side. A baseline is conducted prior to the start of the programme and at least one follow-up will be conducted after 12 or 24 months. Difference-in-differences (DiD) will be the main estimation strategy to estimate and compare the changes in the treatment group between the baseline and future follow-up rounds to changes in the comparison group over the same time, controlling for household- and district-level differences. This approach nets out changes that may have occurred over time due to other factors as the comparison group would have also experienced them.

Outcomes (Endpoints):

Poverty: Poverty headcount is computed based on household total annual food and non-food expenditure in real values and compared with the national poverty line. Poverty gap and squared poverty gap are also computed.

Economic and livelihood: Asset ownership is measured if households own productive, livestock and durable assets. Operation of non-farm enterprise is computed if any household member operated any non-farm enterprises or provide services in the last 12 months. Coping strategies against shocks is calculated if households who faced a shock in the past 12 months and employed either positive or negative coping strategies to cope with the shock. Savings behaviour is computed whether households have savings currently. Resilience capacity index is constructed based on guidelines by FAO.

Health, nutrition and education: Dietary diversity score is measured based on the number of food groups the main respondent consumed the previous day; food insecurity experience scale is computed whether anyone in the household experienced any of the standard food insecurity indicators in the past 30 days. Coping strategies index against food insecurity is computed based on WFP guidelines for constructing the LCS-FS indicator. Health seeking behaviour captures if members sought medical help when ill and school enrolment is also measured for 4-24 year old members by age and level.

Child outcomes: Exclusive breastfeeding among infants 0-5 months is calculated if the infant was fed exclusively with breast milk during the entire day prior to interview. For children aged 6-23 months, the minimum diet diversity is computed whether they received foods from at least 5 food groups during the previous day, the meal frequency is calculated if child was fed the minimum number of times for age.

More details will be provided in an analysis plan before follow-up data is collected.

Unit of Analysis:

Household, individuals

Hypotheses:

• The Family Package increases eligible households’ resilience to shocks including covariate and idiosyncratic shocks.           
• The Family Package improves eligible households’ food security and food consumption habits.   
• The Family Package improves health and nutrition of eligible household members.          
• The Family Package enhances children’s educational status and in particular school retention.
• The Family Package improves the quality of life and wellbeing for elderly and disabled members of eligible households.  

Unit of Intervention or Assignment:

Households are the units of intervention

Number of Clusters in Sample:

N/A

Number of Individuals in Sample:

2400 households

Size of Treatment, Control, or Comparison Subsamples:

1200 treatment and 1200 comparison households

Supplementary Files

Analysis Plan:

Other Documents:

IRB Approval Letter: ERB approval_FP_baseline.pdf
Study Protocol: Study Protocol - Cambodia Family Package Impact Evaluation.pdf

Data

Outcomes Data

Description:

Quantitative household survey: Individual level: demographics, education, health and disability, maternal and infant (0 - 23 months) health, dietary quality questions, immunization (0 -23 months), infant and young child feeding (0 - 23 months), gender decision making, and nutrition & feeding knowledge. Household level: food security, food and non-food consumption, shocks and coping strategies, productive livelihoods and resilience. Administrative data: programme enrolment and payments.

Data Already Collected?

No

Data Previously Used?

Data Access:

Data Obtained by the Study Researchers?

Data Approval Process:

Approval Status:

Treatment Assignment Data

Participation or Assignment Information:

Yes

Description:

Data Obtained by the Study Researchers?

Data Previously Used?

Data Access:

Data Obtained by the Study Researchers?

Data Approval Process:

Approval Status:

Data Analysis

Data Analysis Status:

Study Materials

Upload Study Materials:

Registration Category

Registration Category:

Prospective, Category 1: Data for measuring impacts have not been collected

Completion

Completion Overview

Intervention Completion Date:

Data Collection Completion Date:

Unit of Analysis:

Clusters in Final Sample:

Total Observations in Final Sample:

Size of Treatment, Control, or Comparison Subsamples:

Findings

Preliminary Report:

Preliminary Report URL:

Summary of Findings:

Paper:

Paper Summary:

Paper Citation:

Data Availability

Data Availability (Primary Data):

Date of Data Availability:

Data URL or Contact:

Access procedure:

Other Materials

Survey:

Survey Instrument Links or Contact:

Program Files:

Program Files Links or Contact:

External Link:

External Link Description:

Description of Changes:

Study Stopped

Date:

Reason: