Impact evaluation of Program Keluarga Harapan (PKH), Indonesia

• Apr 15, 2020
• 1 min

MSC conducted a rigorous impact evaluation of Program Keluarga Harapan (PKH), Indonesia’s flagship conditional cash transfer (CCT) program, to generate practical insights for the Ministry of Social Affairs (MoSA). The evaluation assessed the impact of PKH on key welfare outcomes, which included household consumption, education, and health-seeking behaviors. It also explored beneficiary perceptions of the remodelled delivery mechanism that shifted payments to bank accounts. 

Alongside impact metrics, MSC assessed operational efficiency and user experience around the new bank-based delivery system. This provided MoSA with a more comprehensive idea of implementation bottlenecks and opportunities to strengthen systems.

MSC used a mixed-methods approach with a modified regression discontinuity design (RDD) to ensure impactful, counterfactual analysis. The quantitative component included surveys with 1,466 beneficiaries and 1,437 non-beneficiaries from Indonesia’s Unified Beneficiary Database (UDB). The qualitative research featured 24 in-depth interviews with beneficiaries and program facilitators to capture behavioral and perceptual nuances often missed by survey data. 

The evaluation revealed that PKH beneficiaries had an increase of 3.8% in total monthly expenditures compared to non-beneficiaries, with an increase of 11.8% for non-food expenditures. Although beneficiaries spend less on education and health, the differences were statistically insignificant. These numbers suggested potential substitution effects or delayed behavioral responses.

The Ministry of Social Affairs (MoSA), Indonesia, commissioned the project.