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Licence: CC BY: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Civil Conflict, Cash Transfers, and Child Nutrition in Yemen
AU - Ecker, Olivier
AU - Al-Malk, Afnan
AU - Maystadt, Jean-Francois
PY - 2024/7/31
Y1 - 2024/7/31
N2 - The most dramatic outcomes of protracted civil conflict include increased malnutrition among children and the resulting consequences for lifelong health and prosperity. Little is known about how to mitigate the nutritional impact of conflict. Understanding the potential of social protection measures is particularly important when the risk of intense armed conflict is high.We use quarterly panel data from Yemen to estimate the impact of civil conflict on child nutrition and the effect of unconditional cash transfers in mitigating the adverse nutritional impact. The results show that a one-standard-deviation increase in armed conflict intensity reduces children’s weight-for-height z-scores by 9.6%, on average. We also find that the studied cash transfer program mitigates the estimated nutritional impact by 42.4%. Our analysis suggests that unconditional cash transfers can be an effective development policy tool to curb rising acute child malnutrition in Yemen.
AB - The most dramatic outcomes of protracted civil conflict include increased malnutrition among children and the resulting consequences for lifelong health and prosperity. Little is known about how to mitigate the nutritional impact of conflict. Understanding the potential of social protection measures is particularly important when the risk of intense armed conflict is high.We use quarterly panel data from Yemen to estimate the impact of civil conflict on child nutrition and the effect of unconditional cash transfers in mitigating the adverse nutritional impact. The results show that a one-standard-deviation increase in armed conflict intensity reduces children’s weight-for-height z-scores by 9.6%, on average. We also find that the studied cash transfer program mitigates the estimated nutritional impact by 42.4%. Our analysis suggests that unconditional cash transfers can be an effective development policy tool to curb rising acute child malnutrition in Yemen.
KW - Civil conflict
KW - child nutrition
KW - social protection
KW - cash transfers
KW - Yemen
U2 - 10.1086/726294
DO - 10.1086/726294
M3 - Journal article
VL - 72
SP - 2069
EP - 2100
JO - Economic Development and Cultural Change
JF - Economic Development and Cultural Change
SN - 0013-0079
IS - 4
ER -