UNICEF Innocenti: Leah Prencipe profile

Leah Prencipe

Consultant (Former title)

Leah Prencipe focuses on young child health and nutrition, food security and poverty, and educational outcomes for youth. She has several years’ experience implementing impact evaluations on health, education, and social protection programs. She has conducted data collection activities in a number of countries in Africa and Southeast Asia. Prior to joining UNICEF, Leah worked as a researcher at American Institutes for Research (AIR), where she began working on impact evaluations. She also worked as a data analyst for the World Bank, where she analyzed health data from multiple nationally representative surveys for outcomes in equity in health spending, health utilization and health outcomes, such as malnutrition and mortality rates of children under five.

Publications

‘Cash Plus’: Linking Cash Transfers to Services and Sectors

Publication

‘Cash Plus’: Linking Cash Transfers to Services and Sectors

Cash transfers have been successful in reducing food insecurity, increasing consumption, building resiliency against economic shocks, improving productivity and increasing school enrolment. Despite the many successes of cash transfer programmes, they can also fall short of achieving longer-term and second-order impacts related to nutrition, learning and health outcomes. A recent study highlights how so-called ‘Cash Plus’ programmes, which offer additional components or linkages to existing services on top of regular cash payments, may help address such shortcomings.

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Unconditional Government Social Cash Transfer in Africa Does not Increase Fertility

Publication

Unconditional Government Social Cash Transfer in Africa Does not Increase Fertility

Among policymakers, a common perception surrounding the effects of cash transfer programmes, particularly unconditional programmes targeted to families with children, is that they will induce increased fertility. Yet results from an evaluation of the Zambian Child Grant Programme indicate there are no programme impacts on overall fertility. In addition, among young women under 25 years and among women who have access to family planning, fertility actually decreased and use of modern contraceptives increased.

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Journal articles