WUNRN
http://www.icrw.org/publications/making-change-cash
Direct Link to Full 8-Page Research Summary:
http://www.icrw.org/sites/default/files/publications/IMPACCT%20Synopsis%20October%202015.pdf
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Making
Change from Cash? Evaluation of a Conditional Cash
Transfer Program to Improve the Status Of Girls in Northern India
By Priya Nanda, Priya Das, Nitin Datta, Sneha Lamba, and Ann Warner – 2015
Currently, 720 million women alive worldwide were child brides. Child
marriage is a violation of human rights and significantly hinders development
outcomes for girls. Girls married early are vulnerable to intimate partner
violence, sexual coercion, and early childbearing. Beyond the immediate
physical and mental health risks, girls who marry early are excluded from
education and economic opportunities. These adverse consequences to their
health, education, and livelihoods are immense and long-lasting.
Growing recognition of the profound harms of child marriage has prompted
many organizations and governments to introduce new strategies to curb the
practice. These strategies have ranged from small, community-based prevention
efforts to large-scale legal or policy reforms. Because of some success in
alleviating poverty and improving educational and health outcomes, researchers
and practitioners have recently begun looking at conditional cash transfers
(CCTs) as a possible strategy for delaying marriage. CCTs provide cash as an
incentive to fulfill certain criteria determined to have a positive social
impact, such as greater school attendance or use of health services. The few
CCTs that have had the explicit objective of delaying age of marriage and have
been evaluated provide mixed evidence of success.
The Impact on Marriage: Program Assessment of Conditional Cash Transfers
(IMPACCT) study by theInternational Center for Research on Women (ICRW) adds to
the existing evidence on CCTs as a possible solution to delay the age of
marriage and improve opportunities for girls and women.
ICRW’s synopsis of the research provides quantitative and qualitative data about the impact of the program on girls’ lives. ICRW evaluated the Apni Beti Apna Dhan (Our Daughters Our Wealth) CCT program to determine if an economic inventive, which provided eligible enrolled daughters a bond to be redeemed at 25,000 rupees if the girl remained unmarried at 18, was successful. ICRW measured whether the girls were more likely to remain unmarried until age 18, whether they were more likely to stay in school longer or to currently be studying, and whether or not the girls’ and parents’ aspirations for their daughters had increased.