The Kenya Cash Transfer Program for orphans and Vulnerable Children (CT-OVC)
The Kenya CT-OVC is the government’s flagship social protection program, reaching over 100,000 households and 230,000 OVC across the country as of June 2010. In response to a concern for the welfare of OVC, particularly AIDS orphans, the Government of Kenya, with technical and financial assistance from the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), designed and began implementing a pilot cash-transfer program in 2004. After a successful demonstration period, the CT-OVC was formally approved by Cabinet, was integrated into the national budget, and began expanding rapidly in mid 2007 across Kenya. The objective of the program is to provide regular cash transfers to families living with OVC to encourage fostering and retention of children and to promote their human capital development. Eligible households, those who are ultra-poor and contain an OVC, receive a flat monthly transfer of $21 (U.S.) (Ksh 1500). An OVC is defined as a household resident between 0 to17 years old with at least one deceased parent, or who is chronically ill, or whose main caregiver is chronically ill. Beneficiary households are informed that the care and protection of the resident OVC is their responsibility for receiving the cash payment. Currently there are no punitive sanctions for noncompliance with this responsibility, although several districts are testing punitive measures to see if they significantly improve human development outcomes of children. The CT-OVC is implemented by the Children’s Department of the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Development, Government of Kenya.
Evaluation of the Kenya CT-OVC Program
Prior to program expansion of the CT-OVC in 2007, UNICEF and GoK designed a social experiment to track the impact of the program on a range of household welfare indicators including child health and schooling and economic productivity. The evaluation was contracted to a private consulting firm, Oxford Policy Management (OPM), and entailed a cluster randomized longitudinal design, with a baseline household survey (and related community survey) conducted in mid 2007 and a 24 month follow-up in 2009. The ethical rationale for the design was that the program could not expand to all eligible locations at the same time, so locations whose entry would occur later in the expansion cycle could be used as control sites to measure impact. Thus within each of 4 districts across the country (Nyanza, Nairobi, Garissa, Kwale), 4 locations were identified as eligible, and 2 were randomized out of the initial expansion phase and served as control locations. Targeting of households was carried out in all 4 locations (per district) according to standard program operation guidelines. The evaluation sample for the study consists of 2759 households and approximately 15,500 individuals.
Kenya CT-OVC 4-year follow-up study
A four year follow-up survey was conducted 2011 on a sub-set of the original evaluation sample. Approximately 1912 households were identified as being in either the treatment or control arm and surveyed in 2007 and 2009. Of these households 1810 were actually located and enumerated in 2011. In addition, approximately 140 individuals between the ages of 15-24 were tracked and interviewed, for a total of 1950 households and over 11,000 individuals. The four year follow-up survey was conducted by UNC, GoK, Research Solutions Africa and FAO, and funded by the U.S. National Institute of Health.
The objectives of the study are to examine the medium term impacts of the program on household economic activity and welfare, and the transition of OVC into young adulthood. Information was collected on approximately 2400 young people ages 15-25 on schooling, psycho-social status, hope, marriage, pregnancy, sexual activity, partner characteristics, friends, time preference and future expectations. Preliminary results from the four year follow-up will be available in mid 2012. Survey instruments for the four year follow-up are available for download.
Impact of the Kenya Cash Transfer for Orphans and Vulnerable Children Program on HIV Risk Behavior
Presentation by Sudhanshu Handa, Carolyn Halpern, Audrey Pettifor, and Harsha Thirumurthy which describes first evidence of whether a large scale national poverty program can reduce HIV-related risky behavior among young people. View the presentation here.
