Closing the Hunger Gap: A Causal Impact Evaluation of Integrated Social Protection Systems on Food Security

• In Event: Universal Free School Meals Policies: Impact on Child Health and Well-being

Abstract

In many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, increasing covariate shocks including natural disasters, economic crises, pandemics, conflicts, and forced displacement, have exacerbated food insecurity, hunger, and poverty. As climate change continues to exacerbate these challenges, the need for robust social protection systems becomes increasingly apparent. In many sub-saharan Africa countries like Nigeria, the absence of robust social protection interventions has significantly limited smallholder farmers' capacity to recover from disasters amid climate change and conflicts. Shock-Responsive and Adaptive Social Protection Systems (SRSP and ASP) offer protective and productive mechanisms that help smallholder farmers manage short-term shocks and build long-term resilience (Bowen et al., 2020). Despite the expansion of these social protection programs in Sub-Saharan Africa, coverage remains inadequate, leaving many vulnerable households reliant on negative coping mechanisms such as reducing food consumption, depleting savings, and selling assets. Such coping mechanisms only provide short-term relief but undermine long-term stability and resilience. Others rely on family, friends, community groups, diaspora remittances, rotating labour exchanges, savings and credit associations etc, for informal social assistance. For many of these vulnerable households, these informal sources of social protection serve as primary safety nets, particularly in rural areas with limited access to formal protection. Although these informal systems have largely remained invisible in policy and development programming, there is growing interest in exploring their potential and strengthening linkages with formal social protection systems, especially given the recent decline in foreign development assistance to low- and middle-income countries. This study seeks to understand if integrating informal social protection mechanisms with formal social protection systems in policy designs and development programming will enhance food security and nutrition outcomes among households in Nigeria. Specifically, the study investigates the additional causal effect of receiving financial support from informal social protection mechanisms alongside formal assistance on household food security and nutrition in Nigeria. Using a staggered Difference-in-Difference (DiD) impact evaluation approach, the study uses data from the World Bank-supported Nigeria General Household Survey (2010–2024) to assess the impact of integrating formal and informal social protection systems. Findings will contribute to evidence-based policy recommendations for the design of robust and inclusive social protection systems that strengthen household resilience and sustainable health outcomes in resource-constrained settings.

Author

• Sunday John Oluwadero, University of Delaware
  Presenting Author