CGP Impact Evaluation (UNICEF/FAO): Targeting and baseline evaluation report

The Child Grants Programme (CGP) is an unconditional cash transfer targeted to poor and vulnerable households in Lesotho. The primary objective of the CGP is to improve the living standards of Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) so as to reduce malnutrition, improve health status, and increase school enrolment. In order to do so, it provides a regular transfer of M360 (roughly $45) every quarter to poor households with children, selected through a combination of an objective proxy means test (PMT) and community validation.

The program is run by the Department of Social Welfare (DSW) at the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (MHSW), with financial support from the European Commission (EC) and technical support from UNICEF-Lesotho. In the pilot stage technical assistance to the implementation has been provided by Ayala Co. and World Vision (WV).

This independent evaluation – commissioned by UNICEF and undertaken by OPM – covers Round 2 of the CGP pilot, which was launched in the last quarter of 2011, with payments starting in September. Round 2 covers roughly 2,288 beneficiary households in 48 Electoral Divisions within 10 Community Councils spread across 5 Districts (Berea, Leribe, Mafeteng, Maseru and Qacha’s Nek). This report presents the baseline findings of the evaluation. The purpose of the evaluation is to establish the efficacy and efficiency of the CGP programme. In particular, it has two core objectives:

• to evaluate the welfare and economic impacts of the pilot amongst those who benefit from it;
• to evaluate the operational effectiveness of the pilot programme, particularly the extent to which it reaches those in greatest need (targeting effectiveness).

Thanks to additional financial support from FAO and the Transfer Project, the evaluation was extended to include a further objective:

• to evaluate local welfare, social and economic impacts of the pilot in the community where it operates, beyond those who directly benefit from it;

This baseline report presents the results of the first year of quantitative and qualitative fieldwork for the evaluation. The report includes information on the situation of CGP eligible and non-eligible households from the evaluation areas of the programme, before any payment was made to the households. It also provides a detailed analysis of the targeting effectiveness of the programme. Subsequent rounds of fieldwork will generate data on the impacts of the CGP transfers on beneficiary households and communities, and will be presented in follow-up impact evaluation reports.