Background

Global estimates suggest that 690 million people still suffer from undernourishment and in parallel, 40% of adults and 20% of children are estimated to be overweight or obese (GNR, 2022). Furthermore, 20% of global deaths can be attributed to unhealthy diets (Afshin et al., 2019). The COVID-19 pandemic and recent food price spikes have exacerbated the challenges, posing threats to health, economic stability, and food systems. Immediate and long-term actions are crucial to curb the potential rise in maternal and child malnutrition (Osendarp et al., 2021). The UN 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda recognizes the significance of harnessing social assistance programs (SAPs) to expedite progress in addressing malnutrition on a global scale.

Rationale

Social Assistance Programs (SAPs) encompass a range of initiatives that provide transfers in the form of cash, food (in-kind), or vouchers. These programs can be conditional or unconditional and are generally designed to enhance access to food (Alderman et al., 2017). They include food assistance programs, child grants, public works, and can even involve integrated social protection or ‘cash plus’ schemes. By targeting the impoverished and bolstering their ability to purchase food, SAPs inherently possess nutrition-sensitive qualities that could potentially reduce malnutrition (Ruel & Alderman, 2013). However, it’s critical to note that recent reviews have unveiled mixed impacts of SAPs on dietary and nutritional outcomes for both women and children (Olney et al., 2022). Furthermore, the pathways through which these impacts are realized remain inadequately studied.

The Baxnaano Program

In 2019, Somalia marked a significant milestone by launching its inaugural government-led national safety net program, known as Baxnaano. This innovative initiative aims to provide a safety net for the most vulnerable members of its population. Baxnaano comprises four key components, each contributing to the program’s effectiveness and sustainability:

1. Nutrition-Linked Unconditional Cash Transfers: This component involves the provision of quarterly payments designed to support the targeted beneficiaries for 3 years, targeting women with children under 5 (who were not necessarily at risk children). These cash transfers play a vital role in enhancing the welfare of the program’s recipients.
2. Delivery Systems and Institutional Capacity Building: Recognizing the importance of robust delivery mechanisms and the need for an empowered institutional framework, this component focuses on strengthening the program’s operational capacity.
3. Project Management, Monitoring, and Evaluation: Effective project management, coupled with rigorous monitoring and evaluation, is at the core of Baxnaano’s success. This component ensures that the program remains on track and aligns with its goals.
4. Household Registration in the USR: The creation and maintenance of a comprehensive Household Registration system within the Unified Social Registry (USR) are central to the safety net’s preparedness for responding to unforeseen shocks and crises.

Baxnaano Project Activities

Administered by the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs (MoLSA) with support from esteemed organizations like World Food Programme (WFP) and United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), the Baxnaano project has made significant inroads. The project has extended support to 200,000 households (benefiting around 1.2 million individuals) with children under the age of five enduring chronic poverty and vulnerability. This outreach spans 28 districts throughout Somalia including Somaliland. Each household receives a monthly support package of 20 USD, payable on quarterly basis assisting them in meeting their necessities during challenging times[1]. However the adequacy of the transfer value is debatable and should be revised from time to time. Furthermore, through the project’s shock-response element, it has effectively addressed the transient needs of populations affected by disasters on a national scale. Using time-bound emergency cash transfers, a total of 395,804 households, encompassing 2,374,824 individuals, have received assistance across 62 districts as part of the locust and drought response projects.

The absence of a baseline and randomized control group pose a major challenge in terms of undertaking a formal and robust impact evaluation. Moreover, critical gaps persist in understanding the implementation of complementary activities linked to nutrition, such as health system strengthening, including questions regarding the design, coverage, and intensity of implementation.

Study Aim and Objectives

IFPRI is seeking a firm to conduct a study to generate evidence on Baxnaano program implementation quality and perceived program benefits, challenges, and trade-offs, to inform the next phase of programming and evaluation. The focus of the study is on identifying the key learnings gleaned from implementing the national safety net by the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs (MoLSA) in Somalia, in partnership with the UN, in a fragile context. The study will identify what worked well and how the programme can be tailored to encompass the next phase of financing. The key learnings from the study also relate to the cross-sectoral linkages the Baxnaano should have with nutrition, primary education (school feeding), and access to basic services. The study will also explore the ability of national safety net cash transfers to be considered as a versatile instrument for government to engage sub-national participation and ownership leading towards peace building dialogue.

The study’s main research objectives include:

1. Assessing the fidelity of Baxnaano program implementation including adaptations undertaken during implementation.

2. Exploring the benefits, challenges including barriers to assessing social services (education, health, nutrition sensitive programming) and trade-offs as perceived by beneficiaries and other program stakeholders.

3. Assessing the feasibility of the next phase of programming including conditional and unconditional cash transfers, with key components on complementary support to meet basic needs.

4. Provide inputs into the design of the next phase of the program, including both shock response safety net and complementary investments, and prospective impact evaluation design.

We envision the output of this work to provide the basis for a second, prospective phase (conditional on additional funding), involving a rigorous impact evaluation testing the cost-effectiveness of the improved program, with a particular focus on nutrition sensitive components.

As part of Study Objective (SO) 1, the study will also explore the following issues at the institutional level:

· Subnational Government institutions: How WFP has supported these institutions to better deliver services to populations and how this has translated to the population’s perception of the institution

· Civil Society Organizations: How WFP has strengthened the knowledge and capacities related to social protection systems of local NGOs

With regards to the perceived benefits of the program, under SO 2, this will include exploring perceptions on:

· Mobility: To what extent has Baxnaano influenced involuntary mobility? There may be instances where mobility is desirable due to reasonssuch as seasonality, and/or access to services. Therefore, it is important to distinguish between voluntary mobility versus stress-induced displacement in the research

· Asset retention & creation: To what extent Baxnaano has influenced reductions in distressed asset sales, and improved household credit-worthiness?

· Food security & nutrition: How has participation in Baxnaano influenced household food security and nutrition outcomes?

· Human capital development: How has participation in Baxnaano influenced access to basic services promoting human capital development, such as health, education, credit, and community leadership?

· Gender: How has receiving Baxnaano influenced women’s empowerment?

· Local economy: To what extent the local economy been influenced from Baxnaano?

· Social contract: To what extent has Baxnaano influenced the relationship between the Government and community leaders?

Approach

We will undertake a mixed-methods, observational study including the following activities:

Ø Consultation with MoLSA to endorse the study concept note and ToR.

Ø Kick-off workshop to refine project scope and detailed design.

Ø Grey literature review of Baxnaano project documents and other relevant literature to inform design of discussion guides for key informant interviews (KIIs), structured interviews (SIs) and focus group discussions (FGDs).

Ø Review of existing monitoring data from WFP and partners, including PDM data as well as Nutrition CP reports.

Ø Development of nutrition sensitive Program Impact Pathways (PIPs) for Baxnaano and potential modifications for next phase.

Ø KIIs with project stakeholders to examine program design and implementation (~10).

Ø SIs (phone survey, ~300 respondents) and FGDs (~10) with beneficiaries/non-beneficiaries to explore perceptions on program needs, benefits, challenges and potential trade-offs.

Ø Data analysis and reporting.

Ø Validation workshop presenting preliminary findings.

Ø Presentation and journal article preparation.

Deliverables

1. Concept note

2. Study design protocol with ethical clearance from IFPRI IRB

3. 2 workshops

4. FGD and KII discussion guides, and structured questionnaires

5. Presentation slides with preliminary results

6. Final comprehensive presentation slides, including detailed results and study implications

7. Executive summary report

8. Draft journal article for submission

Timeline

The project will include a kick-off meeting for February 2023, followed by a literature review, detailed study design, and ethics submission. In-depth interviews and focus group discussions will be carried out in March and April 2024. Data analysis and reporting will be undertaken between March and April 2024, leading to a preliminary validation workshop in May 2024. The final presentation will be prepared and delivered in June 2024. A journal article based on the study findings will be prepared for publication by the end of 2024.

Essential Requirements

Experience with mixed method data collection

Experience working with Government and other development partners

Experience managing surveys.

Application

Please submit a letter of interest highlighting qualifications mentioned above, along with a detailed budget and resume of the team leader, company info. All supporting docs should be uploaded as one pdf to the application. Materials should be submitted in English by March 7, 2024.