Killing Two Birds With The Same Stone? The Effectiveness Of Food Transfers On Nutrition And Monetary Poverty

Abstract

Currently popular multidimensional approaches to poverty face the challenge of being translated into effective poverty reduction strategies. Central to this challenge is identifying policy interventions that can generate mutually reinforcing outcomes across different dimensions. With this aim we assess the impact of one particular intervention - food transfers- on both monetary and non-monetary dimensions of poverty in Peru. Using household survey data we find that the overall impact of the transfers is progressive from both an income and a nutritional perspective, though much of the benefit is nevertheless captured by the non-poor. In terms of nutritional impact, we find that food transfers increase household access to food, but that their impact on child malnutrition is not statistically different from the effect of other income sources. In terms of impact on monetary poverty, we find that the direct impact of food transfers is enhanced by the incentives they provide to increased work effort for certain groups. Overall, our results suggest that the pursuit of different poverty reduction objectives can build on significant synergies between objectives, though much could still be done to enhance the nutritional impact of food transfers in Peru.