Child Welfare in Developing Countries

to establish impact, attributing observed changes in welfare to the intervention, while identifying key factors of success. Impact evaluations are aimed at providing feedback to help improve the design of programs and policies. They also provide greater accountability and a tool for dynamic learning, allowing policymakers to improve ongoing programs and ultimately better allocate funds across programs. Such a causal analysis is essential for understanding the relative role of alternative interventions in reducing poverty. The papers in this section again adopt a variety of techniques. The rst two impact evaluation studies employ propensity score matching to establish, ex-post, a valid control group to assess the impact on child schooling outcomes among b- e ciaries of various interventions in Kenya and Ethiopia. The third chapter c- ries out an ex-ante evaluation of alternative cash transfer programs on child school attendance in Uruguay. The nal paper further carries out in-depth macro-modeling and micro-regression analysis to simulate the impacts of the food crisis and various policy responses, including food subsidies and cash transfers, on various dimensions of child poverty in Mali. Though using different approaches, the studies are gen- ally in agreement concerning the positive impact of the cash transfer program on child schooling and labor market outcomes. The studies from Kenya and Uruguay both nd that the schooling interventions are progressive.

What factors affect child welfare? How can policy improve child welfare? In developing countries, there has been relatively little empirical work on the analysis and measurement of child poverty. Further, poverty has many dimensions, including mortality, morbidity, hunger, illiteracy, lack of fixed housing and lack of resources, and cannot be assessed with a single measurement method. Based on original research in Africa and South America, and using a multidimensional poverty indicator approach, this book identifies the existence of inequalities in child welfare, analyzes their sources, and evaluates the impacts of policy responses to those inequalities. Topics considered include monetary poverty, asset poverty, nutrition, mortality, access to education and school attendance, child labor and access to health services. The book’s findings demonstrate that while current government programs offering financial assistance, supplementary food, and free or subsidized education and health care have a positive impact on child welfare, these outcomes can still improve, and proposes policy prescriptions towards this end. The book will be of use to poverty and policy researchers, professionals in international development, and graduate students interested in poverty and inequality.