Djibouti Social Safety Net Interlinking Nutrition and Workfare Impact Evaluation 2014, Baseline Survey

Unemployment is strikingly high in Djibouti: only 30% of the adult population is classified as employed, according to the most recent household survey data (EDAM 2012). Since the time of the 2008 food and fuel crisis and in the lack of social safety nets that could be scaled up to respond to the crisis, the Government aimed at promoting temporary access to employment through workfare. Moreover, in spite of progress made towards meeting some health and education-related MDGs, Djibouti's health indicators remain among the poorest in the world. The national prevalence of moderate and severe stunting in the most recent MICS survey is of 33% among children aged 0-5 years old, a prevalence rate comparable to Sub-Saharan countries of a much lower income per capita.

In order to address both issues, the Government of Djibouti is piloting an innovative integrated public works and nutrition intervention. The intervention (i) actively involves the main caregiver in a number of ways (nutrition, workfare) to strengthen her role in the household and (ii) makes access to income (workfare) conditional on the caregiver attending regular nutrition promotion activities. The program targets households with pregnant women and children 0-2 years of age in poor areas (urban and rural) in Djibouti.

The first objective of this evaluation is to test the value added of combining a public works program targeted to women over and above the provision of information and promotion of behavioral change in child care practices. That is, the evaluation will specifically measure the impact of making an integrated nutrition and workfare intervention available compared to a nutrition program by itself. As access to the public works is given only to households where the women has registered to the community nutrition program, the program's goal is to leverage the additional cash income (net of the opportunity cost of participation) to enhance the adoption of improved nutrition practices. The planned evaluation will provide a test for the interaction effect between income and the information and promotion of behavioral change.

The second objective is to test whether these effects are only short term, or whether they extend beyond the fifty days of participation in the public works program. The safety net, by design, provides only short term income support during the first 1,000 days. This evaluation is interested in measuring the extent that the impact extends beyond the contemporaneous duration of the safety net program, after the women have stopped participating. Participants and the control group will be interviewed at endline five months after having exited the workfare program. The medium term effects might in part persist through short term savings, but also through labor supply activation and improved psychological wellbeing of the participants.