Global evidence
There is emerging global evidence that social protection programmes may have a significant impact on the nutrition of households. Conditional Cash Transfers (CCTs) have shown some success in reducing malnutrition.
Conditional Cash Transfers (CCTs) have shown some success in reducing malnutrition. Six programmes have been identified mainly from Latin American countries, that paid families in return for an action such as vaccination of children (Behrman et al, 2001; Maluccio et al 2005; Glassman et al, 2006; Mesnard et al, 2005; Lagarde et al, 2007). Overall, the programmes showed an improvement in care seeking and an associated increase in the value of total household consumption of goods and services. In Mexico, the Progresa programme, which combined conditional cash transfers with nutritional education and micronutrient-fortified food supplements resulted in an extra 1 cm increase in height per year, which translated into a 10% reduction in the prevalence of stunting in children aged 12–36 months (Behrman et al, 2001). The Programa Familias en Acción in Colombia Mesnard et al, (2005) reported an increase after one year of 0.44 cm in height in children aged 0–12 months, whereas Red de Proteccion Social in Nicaragua (Maluccio et al, 2005) recorded a small decrease in the prevalence of stunting, from 41.9% to 37.1%, and that of underweight from 15.3% to 10.4% over 2 years.