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As COP28 approaches, Mozambique's efforts for continued extraction of natural gas amid global energy transition discussions become significant. Holding Africa's third-largest natural gas reserves, Mozambique negotiated its interests at COP27 through new alliances amidst growing controversy around natural gas's role in climate change. With a bigger focus on exports, it faces socio-political complexities and the urgent need for an energy transition to mitigate climate change effects.
The post Climate Emergency in Africa – Mozambique & COP28 appeared first on ROAPE.

The Islamic State's Mozambique Province continues to document its da'wah campaigns across large portions of Cabo Delgado Province.
The post Islamic State expands da'wah activities in Mozambique first appeared on FDD's Long War Journal.

Massacar Abacar, known as "Cebolinha," died after being arrested by the police in the centre of the capital, Maputo. Some claim that he was beaten by the police.

The author revealed that he was being threatened anonymously by people who thought that a book with such a title should not be released.

This is a new situation and could be indicative of a violation of the right to information enshrined in Mozambican law.

In Mali and Mozambique, the Islamic State's men are putting guns away and engaging with locals to help sensitize communities to its ideology and garner public support. In doing so, this highlights the extent of its control and/or influence.
The post Analysis: Islamic State's current da'wah campaign across Africa first appeared on FDD's Long War Journal.

In a celebration of the life of John Saul, his friend and comrade Peter Lawrence remembers a tireless revolutionary, activist, and writer. One of the founding editors of ROAPE, Saul worked in Tanzania and Mozambique, where he analysed the struggles and possibilities for real independence and socialism. Later, he was a leading member and founder of Southern African liberation organisations in Canada. Lawrence marks a remarkable life and contribution to socialist politics.
The post John Saul – a complete revolutionary socialist first appeared on ROAPE.
The post John Saul – a complete revolutionary socialist appeared first on ROAPE.

One hundred years since the birth of the Mozambican revolutionary-intellectual Aquino de Bragança on 6 April 1924, his friend and comrade, Colin Darch, writes about this "man of anguish" – constantly battling to understand what it meant to be a Marxist in the twentieth century. Darch writes how Aquino spent his adult life committed to the struggle for the liberation of Mozambique and for the rest of southern Africa. In 1986 he died in the plane disaster alongside President Samora Machel.
The post "A Man of Anguish": a Tribute to Aquino de Bragança (1924-1986) on the Centennial of his Birth appeared first on ROAPE.

Baroness (Pauline) Neville-Jones has issued a chilling warning about the 'growing' security threats and has called for the UK to spend 2.5% of GDP — even at the expense of tax cuts.It's a call to be taken seriously. She is a Conservative peer and former civil servant who chaired the Joint Intelligence Committee in the 1990s, served on the National Security Council, and was Minister for Security and Counter Terrorism in 2010-2011. She was also the first to argue that the UK needed to help Ukraine after Russia's 2014 attack on the Crimea. Ministry of Defence officials scoffed at the idea that Russia might have grander ambitions in the region. Now, the ongoing war makes that look recklessly optimistic.In addition to Ukraine, there is currently an active war in Gaza, which could even escalate to Iran and elsewhere, plus over 35 major armed conflicts in Africa (including Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Congo, Ethiopia, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan. . And China is throwing its military weight around in the South China Sea, the Pacific and the Indian Ocean.Things are now striking very close to home. UK and European supply chains are being disrupted in the Red Sea and Straits of Hormuz. The UK's National Cyber Security Centre has warned that the threat to vital UK internet systems is 'enduring and significant', with a rise in aggressive state-sponsored cyber-terrorism. And other western nations face the same threats.It does indeed look like a very dangerous world. So are we doing enough about it? The international comparisons suggest not. For the first time in its history, the Russian government's 2024 budget will set military and defence spending at 6% of GDP — more than goes on social spending. At the 14th National People's Congress last month, China announced it would be raising its military budget by 7.2%. Not only does the world look very unsafe, it looks increasingly unsafe.And all this is coming at the worst possible time. Donald Trump, who looks set to re-enter the White House at the end of the year, has already announced that he would turn off US support to Ukraine, and he has hinted that the US will not even suppose NATO countries unless they start spending more on their own protection. Meanwhile, the UK (like many other European countries) is deep in debt, thanks to a string of governments (including Conservative ones) that have put tax-and-spend and costly regulation ahead of entrepreneurship and economic growth,Given the geopolitical and military threats around, that is not a great position to be in. And now, senior Conservatives like Neville-Jones are talking about strengthening defence even if it means sacrificing any growth-stimulating tax cuts. If only our governments had listened to the pro-growth, low-tax, balanced budget arguments much earlier.

On the day the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution demanding a ceasefire in Gaza, U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller deflected press questions about whether the U.S. would compel Israel to comply by saying that the resolution was "non-binding."He went on to say that "it's nonbinding in that it does not impose any new obligations on the parties, but we do believe it should be respected, that it carries weight, and that it should be implemented, as has always been our belief when it comes to UN Security Council resolutions."Contrary to the U.S. position, U.N. ambassadors from China and Mozambique, as well as the UK's former U.N. envoy, have publicly stated that it is binding, along with U.N. Secretary General spokesperson Farhan Haq, who said "all the resolutions of the Security Council are international law, so to that extent, they are as binding as international law is."The resolution, which passed last week with 14 votes in favor and one abstention from the U.S., primarily demands an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan, the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, and guaranteed humanitarian access to address their medical and other humanitarian needs.Resolutions are formal expressions of the will of the Security Council and are backed by the power of international law. Experts who spoke with RS counter the U.S. position, saying that implicit in the resolution is an obligation for the parties involved to comply. Meanwhile, they say it is understood that member states, collectively or on their own, can take measures that will compel parties to comply. More importantly, experts complain that Washington appears to be selectively interpreting international law to favor its political objectives — in this case to protect Israel — an action that could have consequences for its legitimacy in the eyes of the rest of the world moving forward. International law scholar and Yale Law School professor Asli Bâli said Article 25 of the U.N. Charter suggests that all the council's decisions are to be deemed binding. It states that U.N. members "agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the present Charter." Some argue that this passage only applies to resolutions that reference Chapter 7 of the charter, which outlines the powers the council has to respond to security threats. Bâli disagrees, citing a 1970 decision from the International Court of Justice in which the justices agreed with the broader reading of the U.N. charter.Another dispute over what constitutes a binding resolution has to do with what language is being used. Eran Sthoeger, a lawyer and adviser on international law, says that along with clear reference to Chapter 7 and Article 39 of the charter, which empowers the Security Council to assess threats to international peace and security, the Security Council uses the term "decides'' when it wants to be clear that a resolution is binding. Since none of these elements are present in the ceasefire resolution, it should not be considered binding on members, Sthoeger argues. However, international law scholar and Washburn University Professor Craig Martin told RS that, while this resolution does not use the exact word "decide," the language of making a "demand" similarly creates an obligation on member states."It's hard to understand how anyone could suggest there is any ambiguity or uncertainty of the obligation this creates," he said.Bâli cites previous resolutions passed by the council that demonstrate that the use of the word "decide" is not needed for a resolution to be treated as binding and enforceable. One example is Resolution 678, passed in 1990 in order to provide Iraq with a final chance to withdraw forces from Kuwait, in which the council "demand[ed] that Iraq comply fully with resolution 660 (1990) and all subsequent relevant resolutions." Iraq's failure to comply with that resolution triggered military action from member states, led by the U.S.Ian Hurd, a professor at Northwestern University who focuses on international law, said retroactive disputes over whether the resolution is binding are reflective of the U.S. attempting to interpret international law in a way that advances its interests."The U.S. is trying to split the difference between its friends and its enemies and find its own advantageous path," Hurd told RS. Bâli adds that the U.S. claiming the resolution is non-binding means that it can defend supplying arms to Israel. The U.S. position is not without potential consequences. Washington's insistence that this resolution is non-binding in the face of well-established interpretation of charter provisions and Security Council precedent "is once again eroding the normative power of the international legal system," Martin said, adding that it contributes to a growing perception that international law is an instrument of political power for the U.S. and its allies.By abstaining on the ceasefire vote, Hurd says, the U.S. nonetheless increased its pressure on Israel to protect civilians and to follow humanitarian law in Gaza. How the U.S. responds if Israel does not comply with this resolution will reveal whether Washington intends to take a firmer stance on this issue, or not.

The United Nations Security Council finally managed to pass a resolution on Monday demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza — the first true indicator that pressure on President Biden to address the war's calamities is working. The passing of the resolution was followed by spontaneous applause in the Security Council, which is highly unusual. The last time this happened was in 2003 when France's Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin gave a historic speech against the Iraq war. The applause reflects the immense exasperation with Biden's efforts to keep the war going.
All countries supported the measure with the United States abstaining. Ten countries put forward the measure —Algeria, Guyana, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, Republic of Korea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, and Switzerland — that is, all of the non-permanent members, or "elected members," of the Security Council.
By Friday of last week, when Russia and China vetoed Biden's draft resolution, the E10's draft had three operative clauses: demanding an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan, demanding the immediate and unconditional release of the hostages, and emphasizing the urgent need to expand the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Over the weekend, intense negotiations took place following a U.S. threat that it would veto any resolution that didn't "support the diplomacy on the ground" — the diplomatic efforts of Qatar, Egypt, and the U.S. The Biden administration sought to link a ceasefire with the release of all hostages, that is, making progress on one issue depended on complete progress on the other.
This linkage could have made one issue hostage to the other. This is the Israeli position; it wants no pressure against its indiscriminate bombing of Gaza until all hostages are released, effectively making the entire population of Gaza hostages. The most immediate consequence of such a linkage is that the war and killing would continue since no issue can be resolved until all issues are resolved.
The other countries rejected the U.S. demand, insisting that both the release of hostages and a ceasefire are imperative and should not be linked, as it otherwise would provide justification for Israel's indiscriminate bombing of Gaza since Hamas hasn't released all hostages. (Which is why Israel and Biden have pushed for this linkage).
The resolution that passed does not accommodate the U.S. demand. Instead, it combines the two demands (ceasefire and hostage release) into one single operative clause, but without linking the two issues.
Here's how the operative clause currently reads:
"Demands an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan respected by all parties leading to a permanent sustainable ceasefire, and also demands the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, as well as ensuring humanitarian access to address their medical and other humanitarian needs, and further demands that the parties comply with their obligations under international law in relation to all persons they detain."
The Biden administration tried to change the language of the resolution to support the diplomatic efforts co-led by the U.S. But this is a process that thus far has been unsuccessful, partly because the U.S. has pushed its parameters to meet all Israeli demands. This includes linking a ceasefire with the release of all hostages, including male soldiers.
Again, the other countries have resisted, and the E10 resolution only acknowledges these diplomatic efforts rather than supporting them or deferring the Council's responsibility to this process.
An African diplomat told me that the American draft resolution vetoed on Friday positioned the U.S.-led negotiations above the UNSC. The E10 rejected that proposal because they believe subordinating the U.N. Security Council to diplomatic processes preferred by the U.S. will delegitimize the legal authority of UNSC.
The fact that the U.S. abstained signifies the first instance in which we see Biden's rhetorical shift in favor of a ceasefire translate into political action.
The question is how the passage of this resolution will impact U.S. policy in practice. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly threatened to cancel a delegation to Washington if Biden didn't veto the resolution. (He subsequently followed through on his threat). It is noteworthy that the Israeli Prime Minister felt comfortable publicly threatening the U.S. while Biden, after Israel has engaged in extensive war crimes using U.S. weapons and undermined U.S. interests, has not even been able to muster the courage to issue a meaningful warning to Israel.
But will the U.S. still continue to sell arms to Israel, even if Israel continues to refuse a ceasefire? Legally, the resolution does not oblige the U.S. to cease arms sales, but politically, there will be added pressure on Washington to help implement the resolution rather than simply acting as a bystander of a ceasefire.
The Biden administration has dismissed all accusations of Israel committing war crimes by declaring that Israel has a right to defend itself. But with the UNSC demanding a ceasefire, will it be more difficult for Biden to continue to turn a blind eye to Israel's indiscriminate killings in Gaza?

A new open data platform will accelerate robust and comprehensive research in the agricultural sectorThis post was written by Jenna Fahle (CEGA), Radhika Goyal (UCSD), Vinny Armentano (UCSD), and Craig McIntosh (UCSD).Introduction to the ATAI Data PortalSince 2009, the Agricultural Technology Adoption Initiative (ATAI), co-managed by the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA) and the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), has generated robust evidence of the impacts of agricultural technologies, such as stress-tolerant rice or mobile-phone based agricultural extension, on small-scale farmer welfare. Today, ATAI launched a new open data platform to bring together the best evidence from ATAI-funded research in a single portal, making it easily accessible to researchers and policymakers alike. The initiative aims to foster collaboration and evidence-informed decision-making in the agricultural sector, ultimately contributing to the advancement of the most effective agricultural practices and improving farmer welfare.Why make data open?Access to high-quality data has long been recognized as a significant obstacle in social science research. To address this issue, data repositories like the J-PAL Dataverse have emerged, making it easier for researchers, policymakers, and others to access and utilize data from completed research studies. In recent times, the effectiveness of these data repositories has been bolstered by data sharing policies put into place by funders, journals, and research organizations. UC Berkeley's Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences (BITSS) — incubated at CEGA — champions these and other open data approaches as a standard practice that promotes transparency and reproducibility of evidence, strengthening the scientific ecosystem and bolstering the credibility of research findings.The ATAI Data Portal goes beyond the principles of open data by incorporating data harmonization. Data harmonization involves the collection of data from various sources or, in the case of ATAI, a research portfolio, in a manner that ensures users have a comprehensive and comparable view of the information.Harmonized data holds tremendous value for researchers aiming to extract insights from multiple studies. In the past, researchers had to collect datasets from various sources, investing valuable time in cleaning and integrating the data. Often, the unavailability of raw data hindered such comparisons, and the resulting publicly available data lacked sufficient information for meaningful analyses. However, researchers now have a powerful tool at their disposal. With the ATAI Data Portal, they can access harmonized data, enabling them to conduct meta-analyses and explore the external validity and generalizability of research results more efficiently and effectively. This transformative platform opens up new avenues for robust and comprehensive research in the agricultural sector.The ATAI Data Portal also improves the richness and quality of datasets from ATAI-funded projects in several ways. For instance, a number of ATAI-funded studies contain georeferencing, or latitude and longitude coordinates for agricultural fields, households, or study administrative boundaries. When geographic coordinates are available, the ATAI Data Portal overlays the project dataset with environmental variables — such as temperature, precipitation, night lights, and forest cover –- to expand the richness and utility of the data. (Many predictive models rely on this kind of information as ground truth data.)To maintain the anonymity of the surveyed population, the data linkage employs industry-standard geo-masking techniques. By implementing these measures, the ATAI Data portal ensures that the privacy and confidentiality of the participants are preserved while providing valuable insights into the relationships between agricultural practices and environmental factors.During the data harmonization process, meticulous data cleaning is carried out to ensure data integrity. This includes harmonizing units, eliminating negative values, and removing duplicate records as part of the harmonization effort. These measures contribute to the overall reliability and consistency of the data made available through the ATAI Data portal, fostering more robust and trustworthy research outcomes.Thus, the ATAI Data Portal offers a novel approach in that it features high-quality, harmonized data integrated with environmental variables in an open and accessible format."This portal is a first step in an effort to allow datasets from randomized controlled trials to be put to a broader set of uses. By harmonizing core agricultural variables to the fullest extent possible as well as providing broad access to raw data, the portal will allow the research community to aggregate across studies and geographies in a way not possible in any single study." — Craig McIntosh, ATAI Co-Chair and Professor of Economics at UCSDATAI-data.org launched with seventeen datasets based in Bangladesh, Ghana, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Mozambique, Uganda, and Zambia. The portal will continue to grow as more research teams complete and submit their datasets to ATAI.What comes next?The ATAI Data Portal is a public good that will increase in volume and value over time as more open datasets from ATAI become available and more researchers make use of it. The ATAI Data Portal is open-source and freely available.ATAI has seized an opportunity to institutionalize harmonized, open data and further standardize data collection for agricultural randomized evaluations — making every research step count. We hope that this model is an encouraging approach and tool for researchers working to evaluate the effectiveness of agricultural development programs.For more information and for portal documentation, please visit atai-data.org.Making every research step count: Introducing the ATAI Data Portal was originally published in CEGA on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Since October 7, Pope Francis has paid special attention to the war in the Holy Land. As Israeli bombs began falling on Gaza in response to an unprecedented Hamas attack, the pontiff spoke often with parishioners at the Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza City, where hundreds of Palestinians had taken shelter.
The pope called the church "every day to say 'hello', to ask how they are doing, and to impart his blessing," according to parish priest Fr. Gabriele. The frequent contact with Gaza's only Catholic church is perhaps one reason for Francis's emphatic stance against the war. It also helps explain why, when an Israeli sniper allegedly killed two Christian women who had taken shelter at the church, the pope pulled no punches in his criticism.
"Unarmed civilians are the objects of bombings and shootings," Francis said. "And this happened even inside the Holy Family parish complex, where there are no terrorists, but families, children, people who are sick or disabled, nuns."
"This is war. This is terrorism," he said. "May the drawing close of Christmas reinforce the commitment to open the paths to peace."
As the faithful gather to celebrate Christmas, the Vatican finds itself facing a world in crisis. Well before the Gaza conflict kicked off, Pope Francis had already taken to saying that we are living through a third world war, with battlefields spread around the globe. "This is something that should give us pause for thought," he told America Magazine last year. "What is happening to humanity that we have had three world wars in a century?"
The pope is in a unique position to fight back against this trend. In Catholic tradition, Pope Francis is both shepherd to his flock, which sometimes huddles in the world's darkest corners, and a head of state, with the backing of a seasoned corps of diplomat-priests trained at the prestigious Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy in Rome. He also has a nearly unparalleled ability to garner media coverage of his views.
Put simply, the pope is a stakeholder in nearly every world conflict, and he has the tools to do something about it.
Since his 2013 election, Francis has focused on fighting climate change, building ties with other faiths, discouraging war, and, of course, protecting Christians. These laudable goals have always been in tension, but the past year's events have strained them even further.
Ukraine is a case in point. Despite pressure from Ukrainian Catholics, the pontiff has stubbornly refused to pin all of the blame for the war on Russia and insisted that the conflict can only end through talks. "I am simply against reducing something complex to the distinction between the good guys and the bad guys, without reflecting on the roots and interests, which are very complex," he said last year.
Ukrainian bishops reacted with fury when Francis praised figures from Russia's imperial history in an August call with young Russian Catholics. The comments "are painful and difficult for the Ukrainian people, who are currently bleeding in the struggle for their dignity and independence," argued a letter from the leader of Ukraine's Greek Catholic church, which is in communion with the Vatican.
But Pope Francis has remained steadfast in his neutral stance on the war, a position that gives him more room to maneuver than those who have firmly backed Russia or Ukraine. At nearly every public audience since the war began, he has mourned the "martyred" Ukrainians and called on both sides to lay down their arms, highlighting the conflict's enormous impact on civilians.
Notably, his careful efforts to rebuild ties with the Russian Orthodox Church have also borne some fruit.
The Holy See has led an initiative to swap noncombatant prisoners via a winding backchannel, according to the Washington Post. First, Ukrainian officials pass on lists of prisoners to the papal nuncio (the Catholic equivalent of an ambassador) in Kyiv, who then forwards them to the Vatican. Then, the Holy See sends the documents along to the Russian Orthodox Church, whose leader, Patriarch Kirill, personally delivers them to the Kremlin. This effort has resulted in several prisoner swaps.
The pope's more ambitious project — facilitating talks to end the war — has been less successful. In May, Francis appointed Italian Cardinal Matteo Zuppi as his "peace envoy" for Ukraine. Zuppi, who helped end a civil war in Mozambique in 1992, quickly set off on trips to Ukraine and Russia before a July stopover to the United States, where he met with President Joe Biden for two hours.
Zuppi scored a notable victory for papal diplomacy in September, when he visited Beijing and secured a high-level meeting with a Chinese official — "the first-ever meeting in the Chinese capital between the Holy See and a senior Chinese official," as Alejandro Reyes recently noted in RS. With a new cold war brewing, the Vatican has managed to maintain or even improve ties with each of the world's great powers.
Recognizing that peace talks remain far off, Zuppi has pivoted to focus on the repatriation of Ukrainian children who have been taken from their families and resettled in Russia. As the Pillar has reported, Francis's peace envoy has signaled that there is some momentum on this front. "Progress is slow, but something is moving," Zuppi said last month.
Ukraine, then, demonstrates both the extent of and limits on the pope's ability to affect events. The pontiff can focus world attention on the human costs of war and force leaders to think about peace, but he has no real mechanism to enforce his will.
This brings us back to Gaza, where more than two months of war has left more than 20,000 Palestinians dead and much of the strip in ruins. As Israel began its full-scale invasion of Gaza in October, Pope Francis reportedly told Israeli President Isaac Herzog that it is "forbidden to respond to terror with terror."
The call apparently went so poorly that neither side opted to publicize it. (Israeli officials have studiously avoided any public criticism of the pope.) A Vatican spokesperson told the Washington Post that the call, "like others in the same days, takes place in the context of the Holy Father's efforts aimed at containing the gravity and scope of the conflict situation in the Holy Land."
Since the pope has limited leverage over Hamas or Israel, he has largely used his media megaphone to highlight the plight of civilians and call for an end to the war. Francis held separate audiences with the families of people who had died in Gaza and the loved ones of Israeli hostages taken by Hamas, with each group hoping that the meetings would focus world attention on their plight. A ceasefire remains elusive.
Last Christmas, Pope Francis called on believers to turn their gaze to Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus. "We must acknowledge with sorrow that, even as the Prince of Peace is given to us, the icy winds of war continue to buffet humanity," he lamented.Despite the pontiff's best efforts, those winds have now swept into the Holy Land. In Bethlehem, there will be no public celebrations of Christmas this year.

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It has been a very exciting year for social protection! In 2019, my weekly social protection links newsletter reviewed 1042 materials in 43 editions. So here is a personal selection of papers articulated around 10 major themes. Enjoy!

1. Economic and other long-term effects

Daidone et al have a great article summarizing and explaining the economic effects of cash transfers in 7 African countries. Egger et al add another precious data point on the multiplier effects of cash transfers (I counted 12 such points for the moment): in Kenya, every $ injected generates $2.6 in the local economy.

Blattman et al show that after 5 years, a one-off cash grants in Ethiopia has fading effects. Similarly, in Malawi Baird et al estimate that the impact on reduced fertility of an unconditional cash transfers on adolescent girls rapidly vanished.

In Mexico, after 20 years of operations cash transfers ex-beneficiaries showed higher ownership of durable assets (Aguilar et al); 49.2% of them experienced upward mobility (Yaschine et al); they grew 2.8-4.1cm taller and have 5.3-5.7 more years of schooling than their parents (Gutierrez et al), with enrollment in secondary school increasing by 5-10 percentage points over grades 7-12 (Behrman et al). A 10-country review by Millan et al found that the evidence is strong on school completion, more mixed on learning, and limited on employment. Another paper by Millan et al estimate that 13 years after its inception, transfers in Honduras increased secondary education completion by 50%, but also rose the chance of migration by 3-7 percentage points.

2. Health, nutrition and education

Klein et al show that cash transfer participants in Buenos Aires showed higher success rates against tuberculosis (TB); yet Rudgard et al estimate that making transfers "TB-sensitive" would require an additional budget between $165M and $298M per country. Choko et al showed that in Malawi cash plus HIV self-test kits increased HIV anti-retroviral therapy compared to other solutions. Palermo et al find that in Ghana, combining cash and health measures increased enrolment in health insurance in the treatment group from an average of 37.4% to 46.6%.

In Ecuador, Moncayo et al show that a 1% increase in the coverage of cash transfers decreases mortality from malnutrition by about 3%. In Nigeria, Okeke and Abubakar estimate that cash reduced mortality of children in utero by at least 20%. Celhay et al found that cash increased the survival rates of birth cohorts exposed to the program by up to 14.7%. and Dow et al find that in the US, a 10% increase in the Earned Income Tax Credit or in the minimum wage reduces suicides between 3.6 and 5.5%.

In Ghana, Gelli et al found that the national school meals program improved stunting among children of 5-8 years (effect size: 0.12 standard deviations). Neufeld et al on the history of nutrition evidence on cash transfers in Mexico. And a paper by Evans and Yuan shows that girl-targeted versus general interventions in education seem to deliver similar gains, including featuring cash transfers both at the top and bottom among the most effective interventions.

3. Gender

Peterman et al summarize the impacts of safety nets on gender in Africa: safety nets perform well in reducing physical violence as well as improving psychological well-being, dietary diversity and savings. But changes in labor force participation are minimal. In terms of toolkits, FAO produced great guidelines on gender-sensitive cash transfers and public works.

A review of evidence on social assistance and intimate partner violence (IPV) by Hidrobo and Roy shows reductions in physical violence between 25-41% in Bangladesh, Ecuador, and Mali. Another brief by Heise summarizes results from 22 studies across 13 countries.

4. Crime

Tuttle shows that banning convicted drug felons from SNAP food stamps in the United States makes them more likely to return to jail. Sviatschi estimates that in Peru, cash transfers reduced drug production. And in Brazil, Machado et al find that Bolsa reduced homicide rate and hospitalizations due to violence by 8-25%.

5. Crises

Barca and Beazley estimate that it takes between 2 weeks to 14 months to scale up social protection in response to natural disasters. Bruck et al show that a new generation of 7 high-quality evaluations sheds light on social protection in fragile and displacement settings. Cherrier et al produced an excellent compendium on humanitarian-social protection linkages, while Seyfert et examine the trade-offs of integrating refugees into national safety nets.

6. Universality and targeting

A new book by Gentilini et al offers a framework to navigate the analytics, evidence and practices on universal basic income (UBI), while Banerjee et al discuss how UBI may address barriers like lack of credit, insurance or psychological factors among low-income people. Jolliffe et al show that SNAP, the American "floor for the poorest", has been sinking over the past 30 years.

ILO and UNICEF have an overview note on "universal" child grants present in 21 countries, while Kidd and Athias offer a critique of proxy means testing. In Indonesia, Tohari et al estimates that the poverty-based unified database of beneficiaries improved the chance of participating in 3 core programs by 117%, while Bah et al estimate that if all households were included in such database undercoverage would be reduced by one-third. Bonus: Ndiaye et al trace the evolution of the national social registry in Senegal.

7. Insurance and labor markets

Packard et al examines how social protection could be adapted to the changing nature of work, while Jorgensen and Siegel unveil social risk management 2.0. Guven shows that in Africa only 10.6% of Africa's working-age population contributes to pension schemes. The ILO has a fascinating "living document" laying out a number of options disaggregated by occupation.

A review of minimum wages in high-income countries by Dube finds "… muted effect of minimum wages on employment, while significantly increasing the earnings of low paid workers". However, a new compilation of evidence on minimum wage in low and middle-income countries by Neumark and Corella finds that "… when minimum wages are binding and enforced, and when they apply to vulnerable workers, the disemployment effects are most apparent".

8. Tech and financial inclusion

Gelb and Mukherjee take stock of lessons from India's biometric ID (Aadhaar) in providing inclusive services; Masino and Nino-Zarazua show that transitioning to electronic cash payments in Mexico increased households' access to formal financial services. In South Africa, however, Torkelson documents abuses in using cash transfers as loan collateral by a financial company delivering cash itself.

9. Political economy

Hickey et al have an amazing open-access book on the political economy of cash transfers in Africa. Mosec and Mo found that in Pakistan those receiving BISP cash transfers increased support for their political leaders and institutions, while in typhoon-hit Fiji Rios et al show that people receiving cash transfers are up to 20% more likely to be very satisfied with the government than non-recipients. In Brazil and Turkey, Zucco et al show that conditional transfers are only marginally more popular than similar unconditional transfers. Ciminelli et al find that reforms generating large short-term adverse distributional effects are associated with electoral costs for politicians. In Mexico, Cantu documents that cash-vouchers to be used in local supermarkets were provided in exchange for electoral support.

10. Cash plus and cash versus….

In Bihar, Khemani et al asked whether people prefer cash or other services: only 13% chose cash instead of spending on public health and nutrition; in contrast, if cash came in lieu of improving roads, preference for cash rose to 35% (see counter views). In Mozambique, De Walque and Valente compare the effects of a conditional cash transfer program with the sole provision of information to parents on school attendance: information provision is as large as 75% of the effect of the CCT.

Two papers – one on Ghana by Banerjee et al and another on Uganda by Sedlmayr et al – points to the power of combining cash transfers with assets and complementary measures (as opposed to individual components). Also, Carneiro et al evaluate an integrated cash program for 3,600 mothers in Northern Nigeria: after 2-4 years, the program reduced stunting by 8%. Bonus: Bedoya et al show that a package of transfers and assets in Afghanistan increased consumption by 30% and poverty fell from 82 to 62%.

















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Ugo Gentilini
Global Lead for Social Assistance, World Bank
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