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General

Study Overview

Title:

GiveDirectly Iganga Cash Transfer Program

Study is 3ie funded:

No

Study ID:

RIDIE-STUDY-ID-58f6eed60a7ea

Initial Registration Date:

04/19/2017

Last Update Date:

07/16/2019

Study Status:

Completed

Change History for Status

Changed On	Previous Value
07/16/2019	Ongoing

Location(s):

Uganda

Abstract:

In partnership with funders BSZ, GiveDirectly have developed an intervention and study designed to understand the impact of cash transfers on a specific group of recipients, coffee farmers, as well as other, non-coffee farming households in the treatment group. The intention is to explore the subject that BSZ has asked GiveDirectly to test, namely: the impact of cash transfers on these two groups. This study also provides the opportunity to expand the evidence-base on for whom large capital transfers have an impact, and what those impacts are.

Change History for Abstract

Changed On

Previous Value

07/16/2019

In partnership with funders BSZ, GiveDirectly have developed an intervention and study designed to understand the impact of cash transfers on a specific group of recipients, coffee farmers, as well as other, non-coffee farming households in the treatment group. The intention is to explore the subject that BSZ has asked GiveDirectly to test, namely: the impact of cash transfers on these two groups. This study also provides the opportunity to expand the evidence-base on for whom large capital transfers have an impact, and what those impacts are.

Registration Citation:

Faye, M. and Huston, J., 2017. GiveDirectly Iganga Cash Transfer Program. Registry for International Development for Impact Evaluations (RIDIE). Available at: 10.23846/ridie112

Categories:

Agriculture and Rural Development
Health, Nutrition, and Population
Multisector

Additional Keywords:

Secondary ID Number(s):

Principal Investigator(s)

Name of First PI:

Michael Faye

Affiliation:

GiveDirectly

Name of Second PI:

Joe Huston

Affiliation:

GiveDirectly

Study Sponsor

Name:

Benckiser Stiftung Zukunft foundation

Study Sponsor Location:

Germany

Research Partner

Name of Partner Institution:

IDinsight

Type of Organization:

Private firm

Location:

Kenya

Intervention

Intervention Overview

Intervention:

GiveDirectly provides an end-to-end platform that enables funders to give direct cash transfers to the extreme poor. The organization locates poor communities using publicly available data and then sends field staff door-to-door to digitally collect data on poverty and enroll recipients. GiveDirectly targets households using criteria that vary by region, including aggregating a range of poverty-related factors. Additionally, they use a set of independent checks to verify that recipients are eligible and did not pay bribes. GiveDirectly transfers recipient households roughly one year's budget for a typical household. They use electronic payment systems; typically, recipients receive an SMS alert and then collect cash from a mobile money agent in their village or nearest town. GiveDirectly calls each recipient to verify receipt of funds, flag issues, and assess their customer service. In addition, GiveDirectly staffs a hotline for inbound calls and in some cases conducts follow-ups in-person. GiveDirectly will deliver UCTs of 3,400,000 UGX (equivalent to ~1,000 USD) to approximately 3,600 households in the Iganga district of Uganda.

Change History for Intervention

Changed On

Previous Value

07/16/2019

GiveDirectly provides an end-to-end platform that enables funders to give direct cash transfers to the extreme poor. The organization locates poor communities using publicly available data and then sends field staff door-to-door to digitally collect data on poverty and enroll recipients. GiveDirectly targets households using criteria that vary by region, including aggregating a range of poverty-related factors. Additionally, they use a set of independent checks to verify that recipients are eligible and did not pay bribes. GiveDirectly transfers recipient households roughly one year's budget for a typical household. They use electronic payment systems; typically, recipients receive an SMS alert and then collect cash from a mobile money agent in their village or nearest town. GiveDirectly calls each recipient to verify receipt of funds, flag issues, and assess their customer service. In addition, GiveDirectly staffs a hotline for inbound calls and in some cases conducts follow-ups in-person. GiveDirectly will deliver UCTs of 3,400,000 UGX (equivalent to ~1,000 USD) to approximately 3,600 households in the Iganga district of Uganda.

Private Intervention Details:

Theory of Change:

GiveDirectly’s partnership with BSZ was structured around three main objectives:

? Offer direct benefits and choice to extremely poor households in a coffee-growing region of Uganda through the delivery of lump-sum cash transfers.

? Study the impact of cash transfers on smallholder coffee farmers, and thereby provide a clear benchmark for what coffee farmers can achieve if simply given cash.

? Understand the extent to which impacts for coffee farmers, if material, are driven by coffee-specific investments.

Multiple Treatment Arms Evaluated?

Yes

Implementing Agency

Name of Organization:

GiveDirectly

Type of Organization:

NGO (International)

Program Funder

Name of Organization:

Benckiser Stiftung Zukunft foundation

Type of Organization:

Other

Intervention Timing

Intervention or Program Started at time of Registration?

Yes

Start Date:

09/01/2016

End Date:

01/31/2018

Evaluation Method

Evaluation Method Overview

Primary (or First) Evaluation Method:

Randomized control trial

Other (not Listed) Method:

Additional Evaluation Method (If Any):

Matching

Other (not Listed) Method:

Method Details

Details of Evaluation Approach:

GiveDirectly will answer the following questions in this evaluation: Question 1 What is the impact of a UCT on households’ productivity and welfare in Iganga? GiveDirectly will focus on agricultural productivity and welfare measured through income, assets, and consumption. Question 2 What is the impact of the UCTs on coffee farmers? Besides looking at the overall effects described above, GiveDirectly will also focus on the effect of cash transfers on coffee investment, productivity, and sales for coffee farmers. There are two arms to this study – treatment and control – with two subgroups in each arm: coffee and non-coffee farmers. GiveDirectly will be evaluating the impact of the cash transfers by comparing the treatment and control arms. GiveDirectly will also look at the impact of the intervention on coffee and non-coffee farmers separately. This evaluation will establish causal impact through an RCT. After the completion of the initial census, GiveDirectly will randomly assign eligible households to the treatment or control groups. Randomization will happen at the household level – this is the unit of treatment.

Change History for Details of Evaluation Approach

Changed On

Previous Value

07/16/2019

GiveDirectly will answer the following questions in this evaluation: Question 1 What is the impact of a UCT on households’ productivity and welfare in Iganga? GiveDirectly will focus on agricultural productivity and welfare measured through income, assets, and consumption. Question 2 What is the impact of the UCTs on coffee farmers? Besides looking at the overall effects described above, GiveDirectly will also focus on the effect of cash transfers on coffee investment, productivity, and sales for coffee farmers. There are two arms to this study – treatment and control – with two subgroups in each arm: coffee and non-coffee farmers. GiveDirectly will be evaluating the impact of the cash transfers by comparing the treatment and control arms. GiveDirectly will also look at the impact of the intervention on coffee and non-coffee farmers separately. This evaluation will establish causal impact through an RCT. After the completion of the initial census, GiveDirectly will randomly assign eligible households to the treatment or control groups. Randomization will happen at the household level – this is the unit of treatment.

Private Details of Evaluation Approach:

Outcomes (Endpoints):

In order to conduct effective inference, GiveDirectly will shrink the space of outcome variables to a handful of key outcomes and indices. All indices will be created according to the procedure described in Anderson (2008). The following outcomes will apply for all households: • Total household consumption • Total asset value • Total value of production of major crops • Food security index The following indicators will be used as outcomes for just coffee farmers: • Coffee investment index • Revenue from coffee sales

Change History for Outcomes (Endpoints)

Changed On

Previous Value

07/16/2019

In order to conduct effective inference, GiveDirectly will shrink the space of outcome variables to a handful of key outcomes and indices. All indices will be created according to the procedure described in Anderson (2008). The following outcomes will apply for all households: • Total household consumption • Total asset value • Total value of production of major crops • Food security index The following indicators will be used as outcomes for just coffee farmers: • Coffee investment index • Revenue from coffee sales

Unit of Analysis:

Household

Hypotheses:

GiveDirectly’s partnership with BSZ was structured around three main objectives:

? Offer direct benefits and choice to extremely poor households in a coffee-growing region of Uganda through the delivery of lump-sum cash transfers.

? Study the impact of cash transfers on smallholder coffee farmers, and thereby provide a clear benchmark for what coffee farmers can achieve if simply given cash.

? Understand the extent to which impacts for coffee farmers, if material, are driven by coffee-specific investments.

Unit of Intervention or Assignment:

Households

Number of Clusters in Sample:

44 villages

Number of Individuals in Sample:

3788

Change History for Number of Individuals in Sample

Changed On	Previous Value
07/16/2019	3778 households

Size of Treatment, Control, or Comparison Subsamples:

1894 treatment households, 1894 control households

Supplementary Files

Analysis Plan:

Change History for Analysis Plan

Changed On	Previous Value
06/06/2018	20170131 Pre-Analysis Plan GiveDirectly for RIDIE publication.docx

Other Documents:

: 20170131 Pre-Analysis Plan GiveDirectly for RIDIE publication-Updated 5-31.docx

Data

Outcomes Data

Description:

Data is collected by GiveDirectly Field Officers using smartphones. GiveDirectly uses Segovia, a technology company, for all data management (i.e. controlling the survey instrument, accepting incoming data, and storing incoming data). After the initial census, IDinsight applied GiveDirectly’s eligibility criteria, with randomization, to the data and provided GiveDirectly with the list of households that are eligible to receive cash transfers. The survey was administered through ONA – an Open Dat

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:

09/28/2018

Data Collection Completion Date:

09/28/2018

Unit of Analysis:

Household

Clusters in Final Sample:

44

Total Observations in Final Sample:

3788 households

Size of Treatment, Control, or Comparison Subsamples:

Treatment = 1894, control = 1894

Findings

Preliminary Report:

Yes

Preliminary Report URL:

https://www.givedirectly.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Cash_Crop_Ugandan_CoffeeRCT.pdf

Summary of Findings:

What if instead of offering rural, smallholder farmers training or equipment, we simply gave them cash? No strings attached capital to invest as they chose, perhaps to grow their agricultural output, or perhaps to prioritize other needs like housing or an alternate income generation scheme in a lean season? This is the core question that, in 2016, motivated a partnership between Benckiser Stiftung Zukunft (BSZ) and GiveDirectly in Eastern Uganda.

Through this study, we transferred approximately $1,000 to 3,415 households via mobile wallets, while conducting a randomized impact evaluation and standard program monitoring in parallel. In the report, we detail our goals, research design and findings.

At a high level, 12-15 months after the last cash transfers, we observed:

? Large and significant impacts within the treatment group (mix of coffee and non-coffee farmers) for several core households welfare metrics (e.g. 40% increase in consumption from $249 PPP per month to $348 PPP per month)

? For coffee farmers, an increase in the propensity to sell coffee and significant impacts on a number of coffee-related metrics (e.g. more than doubling of coffee revenue from most recent harvest from $12 PPP to $28 PPP); however, base coffee revenue was modest and income from other sources increased by higher absolute amounts

? Overall, similar impacts of cash on coffee and non-coffee farmers (though the study was not powered to robustly assess these differences)

Paper:

No

Paper Summary:

Paper Citation:

Data Availability

Data Availability (Primary Data):

No--Data not expected to be available

Date of Data Availability:

Data URL or Contact:

Access procedure:

Other Materials

Survey:

No

Survey Instrument Links or Contact:

Program Files:

No

Program Files Links or Contact:

n/a

External Link:

https://www.givedirectly.org/whats-the-best-way-to-help-the-people-who-supply-the-things-we-buy-every-day/

External Link Description:

Blog summarizing the project and report findings

Description of Changes:

Study Stopped

Date:

Reason: