Households living in extreme poverty face many challenges that restrict their ability to earn a living, but historically, policies aimed at building pathways out of poverty have focused only on one or few constraints. Evidence from NGO programs points to the promise of multi-faceted programs, but questions remain around the effectiveness and scalability of such programs through government systems. In collaboration with Government Safety Nets Units, Innovations for Poverty Action, and partner researchers evaluated the impact of multidimensional economic inclusion programs delivered on top of national cash transfer programs to address several poverty challenges simultaneously. The evaluation included programs in Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Niger, and Senegal, all countries in the Sahel region. This brief presents the main findings of the evaluation in Niger. Results for Burkina Faso, Mauritania, and Senegal will be presented in forthcoming briefs.

Households living in extreme poverty face a wide range of challenges that limit their ability to make productive investments or cope with unpredictable shocks such as droughts or disease. Productive inclusion programs combine cash transfers with trainings and other support to increase household earnings while also helping households withstand and recover from shocks. However, little is known about the impact of productive interventions when implemented at scale within national safety net systems, or about the optimal combination of interventions. In partnership with country governments and the World Bank, the research team has been evaluating how different productive packages impact the wellbeing and economic stability of safety net beneficiaries in Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Niger, and Senegal. In Niger, a multi-faceted economic inclusion program delivered to women beneficiaries of a national cash transfer program improved women’s consumption and food security, increased their off-farm business activities, and improved their psychosocial well-being.

In recent years school enrollment has risen dramatically in developing countries, prompting a renewed interest among policymakers in education management. Provision of educational services is centrally administered in much of the developing world, but evidence suggests that decentralized, locally administered services may be better suited to address low education quality. Local administration and oversight puts power into the hands of those with the most interest in seeing improvements in service delivery, and the best information about current education quality. By empowering local communities, decentralized management has the potential to combat systemic teacher absenteeism and reduce misallocation and corruption.