The primary objective of Indonesia’s PKH program is to reduce the burden of expenditure on low-income families and change their behavior toward accessing health, education, and other social welfare services. Our study evaluated the impact of PKH on the critical welfare, health, and education indicators. It provided recommendations to enhance the achievements of the program. The key health component of the program covers pregnant women, post-delivery care, babies up to the age of 11 months, and children aged between 1 – 6 years.
The study revealed that PKH continues to positively impact the health and welfare indicators for the beneficiary households. However, the impact on outcomes can improve through compliance monitoring, especially for indicators like the ante- and post-natal care (ANC and PNC) visits for mothers and babies and children’s developmental monitoring.
The Government of India spends about USD 40 billion annually on social safety net programs to provide food and nutritional security for 70% of its population. Yet, health and nutrition outcomes remain sub-par. Malnutrition is a significant contributor to the disease burden in India. A 2019 study by MSC assessed the dietary intake and nutritional gaps among social safety net beneficiaries. It revealed that beneficiaries lack dietary diversity, eat food deficient in macro and micronutrients, and have low nutrition literacy. The study explored solutions that help policymakers build a more nutrition secure food system across India.
The objective of the Digital Financial Inclusion in India (DFII) project was to address some of the major barriers to the enhancement of digital financial inclusion in India. These included not only regulatory barriers but other constraints, such as the lack of commercial incentives and on-the-ground technical expertise. The project was designed with the following three key objectives in mind:
- Enhance access to digitized G2P payments;
- Provide technical support to banks, ANMs, and MNOs;
- Policy advocacy to increase awareness among government officials, banks, CICO network managers, and other key stakeholders in India. The awareness drive focused on the core elements needed to overcome the barriers in CICO management, customer activation, and product development to enable digital financial inclusion.
In line with the delivery requirements of DFII, MSC conducted a study to assess the effectiveness of its financial literacy program. To assess the program, we used the extensive network of SHGs developed by the Jharkhand State Livelihood Promotion Society (JSLPS).
MSC designed a customized pilot program that meets the requirements of the target population. This program was piloted in three blocks of Jharkhand.
The pilot has directly touched the lives of around 6,000 households in around 60 villages and improved their awareness and knowledge regarding basic financial services. Based on the success of the pilot, JSLPS has expanded the program to other intervention blocks which was expected to affect 2.75 lakh households under the SHG net of JSLPS.
Energy4Impact, a UK-based NGO, sought to reduce poverty in East Africa through accelerated access to energy. It provides technical, commercial, and financial advice to MSMEs in the clean and reliable energy solutions sector. Energy4Impact runs programs to enable MSMEs to access debt markets and offers credit guarantees to lenders. In 2016, E4I understood that the operational aspects of its flagship programs, Capital Access for Renewable Energy Enterprises (CARE2) and Developing Energy Enterprises Programme (DEEP) merited a revision in approach to generate greater interest from institutional lenders.
In 2016, Energy4Impact contracted MSC to conduct a consultative review of the Capital Access for Renewable Energy Enterprises (CARE2) project and Developing Energy Enterprises Project (DEEP). MSC reviewed the framework, underlying assumptions, operational guidelines, impact parameters, and implementation progress. It examined the success criteria of the programs critically. Based on the assessment, MSC advised E4I to rework the cash flow and return parameters of the investee companies and highlight them in the DPRs. This would enable E4I to generate greater interest from institutional lenders to fund MSMEs enrolled under these two programs.
Smallholder farmers comprise more than 80% of the farming community in Tanzania. A little more than 1.9% of their total farmland is irrigated. The combination of small landholdings, rain-fed sources of water, and lower adoption of technology exposes smallholder farmers to the vagaries of weather. Over the past decade, climate change has exacerbated heat waves and droughts in Sub-Saharan Africa. The challenge for Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), a pan-African institution, was to develop resilience among smallholder paddy and maize farmers through risk transfer products. However, the market lacked suitable insurance products because most insurers did not find it feasible to serve smallholder farmers.
AGRA engaged MSC from April to June, 2018 to undertake a feasibility study around the delivery of crop microinsurance to smallholder paddy and maize farmers. The MSC team conducted thorough secondary and primary research by deploying both qualitative and quantitative research tools with the following objectives:
- Understand the features and benefits of crop microinsurance programs and products available in Tanzania;
- Spot the nuances of services that different service providers offer;
- Identify the sources of risks for paddy and maize crops managed by smallholder farmers;
- Determine the level of risk of crop failure.
Based on the positive inferences drawn from the feasibility study, MSC recommended that AGRA implement a crop microinsurance project.
Since early 2015, Ethiopia has been in the grip of the worst droughts in recent history, which threatens the food security of more than 10 million people. Responding to the current crisis and Ethiopia’s historical vulnerability to the prolonged drought, Kifiya Financial Technology PLC, a digital technology platform, conceptualized a satellite imagery (normalized difference vegetation index)-based crop microinsurance program for farmers. The entity, however, found it challenging to translate the concept into a commercial product. It engaged MSC to turn its vision into reality.
In 2016, MSC provided technical advisory and capacity-building support to help Kifiya translate its pioneering NDVI-based agriculture insurance product concept into a first-of-its-kind product in Ethiopia. MSC provided the following support:
- Translated the concept into a comprehensible, client-centric index insurance product;
- Forged partnerships with a leading insurer and government agencies; Analyzed the regulations in Ethiopia and obtained regulatory approval;
- Mobilized government support and secured the commitment of financial aid to the project in the form of direct subsidy to beneficiaries;
- Formulated a strategic business plan that aligned seamlessly with the client’s existing DFS business.