A maternal and child health intervention in the context of unprecedented flooding: lessons for disaster responsive social protection

This study supports the evaluation of the Mother and Child Health Conditional Cash Transfer Program introduced in Umerkot, Sindh in April 2022. The objective was two-fold, the overall impact estimation of the CCT on markers of women’s and children’s health and identifying how the CCT’s effectiveness varies based on characteristics of women’s agency, work burdens and mobility constraints.

We are expanding on this research agenda given the unprecedented monsoon flooding in our study area which created a chance to assess the role of social protection and how it interacts with a weather shock. With natural disasters becoming more frequent in the face of climate change and their disproportionate effects on the poor and vulnerable, it has become increasingly important to identify effective mitigation strategies.

Conditional cash transfers have emerged as a popular tool to improve outcomes but the floods may have shifted focus away from the health of the mother and child. However, extra income may produce meaningful effects as the floods would have tightened household budget constraints.

This evaluation was planned in close collaboration with the Sindh Social Protection Strategy Unit (SPSU) given their plan to scale up the CCT to 10 more districts and wanting the scale up informed by rigorously carried out research. Our detailed baseline questionnaire also revealed other findings of interest for SPSU for their efforts to establish extensive social protection for the citizens of their Provence. It is not only important to introduce a welfare program for the poor but to also ensure that they are benefitting from it- even more important in the context of a natural disaster.