Ashu Handa is an economist whose work centers on global poverty, health, and human development in sub-Saharan Africa. At AIR, he works to expand Equity Initiative work internationally and supports AIR’s global poverty research and policy efforts. He has been a professor at the University of North Carolina for 20 ...
Among policymakers, a common perception surrounding the effects of cash transfer programmes, particularly unconditional programmes targeted to families with children, is that they induce increased fertility. We evaluate the Zambian Child Grant Programme, a government unconditional cash transfer targeted to families with a child under the age of 5 and ...
Through its work with the U.S. Department of Labor, AIR is helping Mexico address its most pressing and immediate needs in the transition to the new labor justice system by supporting the government efforts to establish and operate new, more effective labor justice institutions. Similarly, in Honduras, we are supporting ...
The First 1,000 Most Critical Days Program was designed to offer mothers and babies in Zambia a suite of interventions to improve their health and development. This report is the result of an evaluation of the efficacy of this program.
Jonathan A. Simonetta is Vice President, International Development at AIR. As Vice President, he mentors researchers, oversees projects, monitors overall project performance, and leads business development for our International Development Division.
A Child Grant cash grant program for households with children under five in three districts in Zambia generated positive impacts, both in terms of immediate needs of the family and children's health, and in longer term productivity.
In November 2021, the World Food Programme reported possible "pockets of famine" in Southern Madagascar, citing climate change as a key driver. AIR has extensive experience conducting research on agricultural and social protection interventions in the south of Madagascar. Our research contributes to evidence that prompt interventions providing access to ...
Experts from AIR will present on a broad range of research topics—including Africa’s unconditional cash transfers, children’s literacy development, and mixed methods approaches for enhancing systematic reviews—during the What Works Global Summit (WWGS) September 26-28 in London.
A two-year randomized control trial evaluating Zambia's Child Grant social cash transfer program found dramatic improvements in the amount of food and clothing going to infants and young children in high poverty families, and a 50 percent increase in the total value of crops produced by ...
Programs designed to alleviate hunger and increase food supply through cash transfers to some of Zambia’s poorest families achieved those goals and more, final evaluations conducted by AIR revealed. Overall, researchers found that a cash-transfer program geared toward families with at least one young child had effects that amounted to ...