Assignment name: Retrospective Impact Evaluation of Cash Transfers
| Approx. value of the contract (in current US$): US $ 152,722
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Country: Zambia Location within country: 5 districts: Chipata, Kalomo, Katete, Kazungula, Monze
| Duration of assignment (months): 18
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Name of Client: The World Bank, DFID, GTZ, CARE International, MASDAR
| Total No. of staff-months of the assignment: 57
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Contact Person, Title/Designation, Tel. No./Address: | Mirey Ovadiya, The World Bank: 1818H Street, Washington DC, USA. [email protected]
Ric Goodman, Formerly with DFID. Now with DAI Global (UK), 1 Smart’s Place, London WC2B 5LW, United Kingdom. Email: [email protected]; Phone: +44 (0)1442 202400Esther
Prof. Dr. Esther Schüring, Formerly with GTZ, Lusaka, Zambia. Now at Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences, Grantham-Allee 2–8, 53757 Sankt Augustin, Germany. Email: [email protected]. Phone: +49 2241 865 161
David Hunsberger, CARE International, Lusaka, Zambia. [email protected]
Nicholas Freeland, MASDAR, [email protected]
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Start date (month/year): March 2007 Completion date (month/year): September 2008
| No. of professional staff-months provided by your consulting firm/organization or your sub consultants: 57
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Name of associated Consultants, if any: N/A
| Name of senior professional staff of your consulting firm/organization involved and designation and/or functions performed (e.g. Project Director/Coordinator, Team Leader): Prof. Gelson Tembo – Project Coordinator/Principal Investigator (PI); Doreen Goma – Master Trainer/Field Manager; Nathan Tembo – Master Trainer/Field Manager; Festus Tembo – Financial Manager |
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Description of Project: This impact evaluation of Zambia’s Pilot Social Cash Transfer (CT) Scheme was developed under the auspices of the Ministry of Community Development and Social Services, with support from the World Bank and key cooperating partners, and was among the first cash transfer pilots to be rigorously evaluated in the African context. The evaluation had two linked objectives: (i) to estimate the causal impact of the CT on household welfare and related outcomes, and (ii) to test whether adding soft conditions—focused on children’s health and education—produced additional gains. The study evaluated two program components—the cash transfer and conditionality—with conditions defined as school attendance for children over five and possession of an under-five health card for younger children (under a “soft,” non-enforced commitment). Methodologically, the evaluation combined a retrospective quasi-experimental discontinuity design in districts where the program was already operating (Kalomo, Chipata, and Kazungula) with a prospective randomized phase-in (experimental) design in Monze, where CWACs were to be randomly phased into the program over time to create credible treatment and control groups at community level.
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Description of actual services provided by your staff within the assignment: Palm Associates’ responsibilities were to deliver the full field and data implementation of the impact evaluation surveys underpinning the cash transfer study—working with the evaluation team to translate the agreed design into high-quality evidence. This meant (i) supporting finalization of the evaluation and sampling design and the randomization procedures for the prospective Monze phase-in (including conditionality assignment); (ii) developing, pre-testing, and finalizing the survey instruments and completing the required human-subjects/ethical approval steps; (iii) conducting the major survey rounds specified in the timeline—most notably the baseline survey in Monze and the retrospective survey in Kalomo—while coordinating with partners using existing survey data for Kazungula and Chipata; and (iv) completing the back-end workflow of data entry, cleaning, analysis, and reporting, including preparing the planned reports on baseline findings and retrospective impact results within the agreed schedule.
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