Reaching the marginalized: EFA global monitoring report, 2010; 2010

010CHAPTER 32Education for All Global Monitoring ReportWell-designedschool feedingprogrammescan providesignificantnutritional andeducationalbenefitsBox 3.23: Ethiopia — Productive Safety Net Programme boosts children’s educationEthiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme is thelargest social protection programme in sub-SaharanAfrica outside South Africa. Launched in January2005, the Productive Safety Net Programme nowprovides regular cash or food transfers to more than7 million people whose food sources are unreliable.It has produced significant benefits for education.The programme aims to protect highly vulnerablepeople against shocks and to build their assets.During periods of stress, one adult per household isguaranteed the option of working in an employmentprogramme that provides payment in cash or in kindas food. In effect, the programme is a social insurancemechanism. It offers people a chance to manage riskwithout having to sell productive assets, cut spendingon nutrition or take children out of school. It hasbenefits affecting education at various levels:Children’s participation in education. Data for2006 indicate that about 15% of cash from theprogramme was used for education purposes.By 2008, spending on education was the mostcommon type of investment of programmeresources. Financial support has enabled manyfamilies to deal with shocks without taking childrenout of school. Half of the households interviewedin 2006 reported keeping their children in schoollonger rather than withdrawing them when cashor food was short; and one-third enrolled moreof their children in school. The benefits werestrongest in districts where transfers were incash rather than food.Unconditional transfers can also generate strongbenefits. In Zambia, a pilot unconditional cashtransfer programme supported by German aidinvolved two districts, Kalomo and Kazungula,marked by large out-of-school populations andhigh levels of poverty. It resulted in significantdeclines in absenteeism among children from poorhouseholds in Kalomo and an increase in spendingon education in both districts (UnderstandingChildren’s Work, 2009). Thus, social protectioncan have an effect even in countries unable toimplement and monitor conditional transfers.School feeding programmes provide another formof social protection. The World Food Programmeestimates that 59 million primary students attendschool in a state of malnutrition, with 23 millionof them in sub-Saharan Africa alone (World FoodProgramme, 2009). Well-designed school feedingprogrammes that include micronutrient fortificationClassroom construction. The public workscomponent of the programme has includedclassroom construction and upgrading of schools.In some villages, construction of classrooms hasallowed schools to add a grade, enabling pupils tostay on for another year and reducing the attritionassociated with transition to more distant schools.Health and nutrition. Almost a third of recipientsspend cash from the programme on health servicesand the public works component has helped buildlocal clinics. The programme bolsters health andnutrition — receiving a relatively high transferfrom the programme reduces the likelihood oflow calorific intake by over ten percentage points.Set against these positive outcomes are someimplementation problems. Employment-based supportcan create incentives for child labour. One study foundthat about 8% of workers in the programme wereunder 18. In families facing tight labour constraints,low transfers only partially alleviated resourceconstraints and in some cases pushed parents intocompensating for the transfer of their labour to theprogramme by increasing demands on young girls.An independent evaluation has concluded that theprogramme ‘could improve child schooling and reducechild labour provided that the transfers are largeenough’ (Hoddinott et al., 2009, p. 21).Sources: Devereux et al. (2006); Hoddinott (2008);Hoddinott et al. (2009); Sharp et al. (2006); Slater et al. (2006);Woldehanna (2009).and deworming provide significant nutritionalbenefits. They can increase school attendanceand educational achievement (Bundy et al., 2009b;Kristjansson et al., 2007; Miguel and Kremer, 2004).Many programmes incorporate a strong genderdimension by making special provision for girls’nutrition. One survey in sub-Saharan Africacovering 32 countries and 4,000 primary schoolsreceiving World Food Programme support foundthat school feeding had marked benefits on schoolparticipation (World Food Programme, 2007).What is less clear is the scale of the benefits andthe most effective delivery mechanism. Schoolfeeding programmes raise many of the same issuesfor policy-makers as social protection in otherareas. The key to success is equitably and costeffectivelydelivering an adequate incentive in termsof the amount of rations provided. There is someevidence that programmes combining take-home208