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Poverty & Public Policy, Vol. 9, No. 4, 2017
The Impact of Cash Transfers on Women’s
Empowerment: The Case of the Tanzania Social
Action Fund
Abel Alfred Kinyondo and Joseph Magashi
Economics Department, University of Dar es Salaam, Dar es Salaam, United Republic of Tanzania
Social cash transfer (CT) programs are widely promoted around the world as effective instruments for
poverty reduction. Unfortunately, they are rarely examined in a rigorous fashion to determine their
purported impact. It is in this context that a mixed method was employed in the present study on a
panel data set collected between 2015 and 2017 to examine the impact of the Tanzania Social Action
Fund’s (TASAF) CT program on women’s empowerment. Results from a quasi‐experimental design
show that TASAF targets poor households and does have an impact within its own sphere. However,
the said impact does not spill over outside TASAF domain. These results are corroborated by qual-
itative data findings used in the study. We thus recommend that TASAF be accompanied by similar
programs for a bigger and sustainable impact on women’s empowerment to be realized. Moreover, the
study recommends that initiatives such as that of TASAF should go hand‐in‐hand with religious,
legal, and cultural reforms.
KEY WORDS: cash transfers, pay as you work project, TASAF, women economic empowerment,
WEAI, difference in differences, quantitative data, qualitative data, Tanzania
社会现金转移支付计划(CTs)作为有效减贫工具在全球广泛实行。不幸的是,该计划很少经
过严谨的检验,以决定其宣称的影响。以此为背景,现有研究将一种混合方法应用于2015年至
2017年收集的一组面板数据,以期检验“坦桑尼亚社会行动基金”(TASAF)的现金转移支付
计划对妇女赋权产生的影响。一项准实验设计得出的结果显示,TASAF以贫困家庭为目标,
并且的确发挥了作用。然而,这种作用不会出现在TASAF范围之外。这些结果通过本研究中
使用的定性数据发现得以证实。因此我们建议,TASAF应与相似的计划一同为妇女赋权发挥
更大的、可持续的影响。此外,本研究建议,与TASAF类似的倡议计划应同宗教改革、立法
改革和文化改革一并进行。
关键词: 坦桑尼亚社会行动基金 (TASAF), 现金转移支付, 差异中的差异, 女性赋权/妇女赋权 , 农业妇女
赋权指数 (WEAI)
Los programas sociales de transferencia de dinero (CTs) se promueven ampliamente en todo el mundo
como instrumentos efectivos para la reducción de la pobreza. Desafortunadamente, rara vez se ex-
aminan de manera rigurosa para determinar su supuesto impacto. Es en este contexto que se empleó
un método mixto en el presente estudio sobre un panel de datos recopilados entre 2015 y 2017 para
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