Adrien Bouguen

Beyond Poverty Reduction: Evidence from a Multifaceted Program on Poverty, Nutrition and Child Development

By Adrien Bouguen and Andrew Dillon∗

We study the impacts of a multifaceted program implemented in Burkina Faso that targets ultra-poor households with young chil- dren or pregnant women. The design includes a cash transfer pro- gram (T1), T1 plus animal transfer (T2) and T2 plus a nutrition- focused program (T3). We find that the program reduces extreme poverty in all treatment branches, but only T3 positively impacts child nutrition and anthropometrics measures. Besides, only the T3 branch impacts motor and cognitive development of new born children. Our results suggest that while transfer programs are ef- fective at reducing poverty, nutritionally focused programs are nec- essary to trigger a cognitive response.