Publications

Integrated social protection programmes are increasingly being pursued as more effective and efficient ways to improve children’s health and nutrition outcomes. UNICEF Ethiopia is implementing a pilot Integrated Safety Net Programme (ISNP) in the Amhara region of Ethiopia aimed at integrating a cash transfer (through the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP)), a health insurance (the Community Based Health Insurance (CBHI)), social and behaviour change communication (on nutrition, feeding practices, sexual and reproductive health, gender equality, and child marriage), and case management (for malnourished and out of school children).

The ISNP implementation began in early 2019. Knowing that integration comes with its own challenges in terms of planning, coordination, harmonization of systems and tools, and the alignment of budgets, this qualitative study sought to understand the status of implementation, emerging challenges, and potential remedial actions to ensure the intervention achieves the stated objectives. The study shows that while there is progress, more action is needed in terms of implementing the planned management information system (MIS), ensuring adequate and well trained frontline workers are in place, further improving harmonization of targeting tools, and increasing budgetary allocation.

Integrated social protection programmes are increasingly being pursued as more effective and efficient ways to improve children’s health and nutrition outcomes. UNICEF Ethiopia is implementing a pilot Integrated Safety Net Programme (ISNP) in the Amhara region of Ethiopia aimed at integrating a cash transfer (through the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP)), a health insurance (the Community Based Health Insurance (CBHI)), social and behaviour change communication (on nutrition, feeding practices, sexual and reproductive health, gender equality, and child marriage), and case management (for malnourished and out of school children).

The ISNP implementation began in early 2019. Knowing that integration comes with its own challenges in terms of planning, coordination, harmonization of systems and tools, and the alignment of budgets, this qualitative study sought to understand the status of implementation, emerging challenges, and potential remedial actions to ensure the intervention achieves the stated objectives. The study shows that while there is progress, more action is needed in terms of implementing the planned management information system (MIS), ensuring adequate and well trained frontline workers are in place, further improving harmonization of targeting tools, and increasing budgetary allocation.

Best of UNICEF Research showcases the most rigorous, innovative and impactful research produced by UNICEF offices worldwide. While evidence highlights emerging issues, it also informs decisions and provides policy and programme  recommendations for governments and partners to improve children’s lives. 

This ninth edition brings together 11 powerful studies from around the world and across the five Strategic Goal Areas. How do South Asian youth feel about entering the world of work? What is the effect of climate-related hazards on access to health care? How has COVID-19 affected children and their families in the Republic of Moldova? With social and economic inequalities increasing and progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals lagging, rigorous research – answers to these questions – has never mattered more.

UNICEF supports the Government of Ethiopia to implement a pilot Integrated Safety Net Programme (ISNP) in the Amhara Region from 2019 to 2023. The objective of the programme is to harness the potential synergies that can be realized by integrating social protection policies and programmes. It seeks to test the efficacy of combining cash and services to improve nutrition and health outcomes for children and their households.

This report describes the conceptual framework and methodology for an impact evaluation of the ISNP intervention and presents findings from a baseline study. The baseline study confirms the low socio-economic status of PSNP households in the domains of housing conditions, sanitation, schooling, health seeking, food security, women’s agency, subjective wellbeing, sexual and reproductive health, access to social services, child nutrition and child protection. The PSNP clients are found to be generally worse off than the entirety of rural Amhara – confirming the targeting effectiveness of the PSNP. The study highlights the gaps that the ISNP interventions are meant to address and provides concrete action points for successful implementation.

Emerging evidence suggests that social protection programmes can have a positive role in delaying marriage for girls. But the pathways and design features by which programmes may influence child marriage outcomes remain unknown. This mixed-methods study explores whether and how the Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) in Ethiopia, given its national reach and potential to address poverty, can also affect child marriage practice. It draws on descriptive quantitative and qualitative data from an ongoing impact evaluation of the Integrated Safety Net Program (ISNP) pilot in the Amhara region. 

It finds that PSNP, through an economic channel, is effective in reducing financial pressures on families to marry off girls and in improving girls’ education opportunities. Income-strengthening measures must, however, be accompanied by complementary efforts – including girls’ empowerment, awareness-raising and legal measures – to transform deep-rooted social and gender norms and attitudes that perpetuate the harmful practice of child marriage.  

Emerging evidence suggests that social protection programmes can have a positive role in delaying marriage for girls. But the pathways and design features by which programmes may influence child marriage outcomes remain unknown. This mixed-methods study explores whether and how the Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) in Ethiopia, given its national reach and potential to address poverty, can also affect child marriage practice. It draws on descriptive quantitative and qualitative data from an ongoing impact evaluation of the Integrated Safety Net Program (ISNP) pilot in the Amhara region. 

It finds that PSNP, through an economic channel, is effective in reducing financial pressures on families to marry off girls and in improving girls’ education opportunities. Income-strengthening measures must, however, be accompanied by complementary efforts – including girls’ empowerment, awareness-raising and legal measures – to transform deep-rooted social and gender norms and attitudes that perpetuate the harmful practice of child marriage.