BANGLADESH INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AND STRATEGIC STUDIES

IMPACT OF ASSET TRANSFER PROGRAMME ON LANDHOLDINGS AND FOOD SECURITY OF THE ULTRA POOR: EVIDENCE FROM BRAC’S CFPR-TUP PROGRAMME

Author: Latifa Khanam, Muhammad Shahadat Hossain Siddiquee

DOI Link: DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.56888/BIISSj2013v34n1a5

ABSTRACT

This paper attempts to examine the impact of the ‘Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction-Targeting the Ultra Poor’ (CFPR-TUP) programme on landholdings and food security of the ultra poor using a large balanced panel dataset (2002, 2005 and 2008). The main objective of this paper is to explore short- and long-term impact of the programme on landholdings and food security of the ultra poor using conditional and unconditional difference-in-differences (DID) methods. In addition, fixed effects estimation is also applied to check the robustness of the estimates on this certain outcomes of landholdings like total landholdings, access to land, land-man ratio and chronic food deficit after capturing the unobserved heterogeneity. In particular, this paper examines the distinction between treatment and control groups in the base year. This study (based on proportion as a unit of measurement) finds the robustness of impact estimates in the long-term for homestead, cultivable and total landholdings using both DID approaches, which also find short- and long-term robust impact for cultivation of others’ land, access to land and leasing. After using decimal as a unit of measurement, this study finds the long-term robust impact on homestead, total land owned, access to land and land-man ratio. Here this study does not find robust impact on cultivable land and cultivation of others’ land both in short- and long-term. Fixed effects method is applied on total land owned, access to land and land-man ratio. The findings suggest that the CFPR has robust impact on total land owned, access to land and land-man ratio only in the long-term irrespective of the approaches. To check the channel between landholdings and food security, fixed effects method is applied only for chronic food shortage and DID methods are applied to all self-perceived food safety issues like chronic and occasional food deficit, break-even and food surpluses. All three approaches provide very much consistent results for short- and long-term impact. All three approaches validate robustness of impact on chronic food deficit suggesting households belong to the programme face significantly less chronic food shortages compared to the control.