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Field
Abstract
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Before
Between September 2014 and September 2015, HI administered productive asset transfers to poor households living in three distinct agro-ecological zones of Nepal. The present RCT assigned three treatments at the village level: Treatment one delivered a full package of benefits to program participants, including physical capital (goats), human capital formation, and social capital formation. Treatment two withheld the physical capital from beneficiaries; treatment three withheld social capital formation. Within treatment groups we further sub- divided the sample so as to capture indirect effects, both programmed and unprogrammed. The present document outlines the outcome variables and econometric methods we will use to assess the effect of the program on assets, income, non-food consumption, finance, time use, physical health, mental health, food security, aspirations, and women's empowerment.
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After
This study is designed to evaluate the welfare impacts of Heifer International's (HI) Smallholders in Livestock Value Chain Program (SLVC) in rural Nepal using a cluster randomized controlled trial (RCT). The program targets women in poor rural communities, and provides a package of benefi ts that includes a livestock transfer (two doe goats and a shared breeding buck), technical training on improved animal management and entrepreneurship, self-help group (SHG) formation, and values-based training. Rather unique to the HI program, the values-based training encourages bene ficiaries to "pay it forward" (PIF) by sharing newly acquired technical skills and giving the first-born female o ffspring of their received goats to another individual in their community. The RCT assigned three treatments at the village level: In the first treatment
arm of our study, bene ficiaries received a full treatment (FT) package that included a livestock transfer, skills-based technical training and values-based non-technical training. In the second treatment arm, bene ficiaries received skills-based technical training and values-based
non-technical training, but not goats (NG). In the third treatment arm bene ficiaries received a livestock transfer and skills-based technical training, but not values-based non-technical training (NVT). Because encouragement to pay forward bene fits is the primary element of
the values-based training, the third treatment arm allows analysis of the PIF mechanism. To analyze the PIF mechanism, the sample includes two types of beneficiaries: those directly targeted and potential PIF beneficiaries. Data was collected in 2014, 2016, 2017 and 2018. An initial pre-analysis plan outlined data analysis plans for the 2016 survey, while a second pre-analysis plan outlines data analysis plans for the 2017-2018 data.
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