Increased market inclusion through participation in agricultural value chains may increase employment and household incomes, but evidence on its empowerment impacts is mixed. In societies with restrictive social norms, greater market inclusion can enhance existing income and empowerment...

The importance of children’s nutritional status for subsequent human capital formation, the limited evidence of the effectiveness of social protection interventions on child nutrition, and the absence of knowledge on the intra-household impacts of cash and food transfers or how they are shaped...

Social protection programs are primarily focused on influencing household behavior in the short term, increasing consumption to reduce poverty and food insecurity, and promoting investments in human capital. A large body of evidence across numerous settings shows that cash and food transfer...

Little is known about whether reductions in intimate partner violence (IPV) from cash transfer programs persist over the longer term. Using a randomized controlled trial design, we show that a program providing poor women in rural Bangladesh with cash or food transfers, alongside nutrition...

Interest has grown in leveraging cash transfer programs with nutrition interventions to improve child nutrition at scale. However, little is known about how doing so affects household economic well-being. We study a program providing cash or food transfers, with or without nutrition behavior...

Transfer programs have been shown to reduce intimate partner violence (IPV), but little evidence exists on how activities linked to transfers affect IPV or what happens when programs end. We assess postprogram impacts on IPV of randomly assigning women in Bangladesh to receive cash or food, with...

Evidence shows transfer programs can improve early childhood development (ECD). However, knowledge gaps remain on how short-term impacts on ECD evolve as children grow older, how program design features and context affect child development impacts over time, and through what pathways such...

Women’s self-help groups (SHGs) have increasingly been used as a vehicle for social, political, and economic empowerment as well as a platform for service delivery. Although a growing body of literature shows evidence of positive impacts of SHGs on various measures of empowerment, our...

Value-chain projects are increasingly being used to link smallholders to markets. However, in contexts where women tend to own and control fewer assets than men, and are more likely to be involved in informal rather than formal market activities, there is potential for value-chain projects to...

The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) is a new survey-based index designed to measure the empowerment, agency, and inclusion of women in the agricultural sector. The WEAI was initially developed as a tool to reflect women’s empowerment that may result from the United States...