Institutional assessment of the Child Grants Programme and Sustainable Poverty Reduction through Income, Nutrition, and Access to Government Services pilot project in Lesotho

Book excerpt: This report presents analysis and findings from an institutional assessment conducted during March - September 2019 of the Lesotho Child Grants Programme (CGP), a national social protection programme supporting poor households with children 0-18 years, and the Sustainable Poverty Reduction through Income, Nutrition and Access to Government services (SPRINGS) pilot project. The main objective of this study is to understand the institutional architecture and processes of the two programmes and identify those that facilitated or hindered coordination between the social protection and productive dimensions of development interventions seeking to address rural poverty, hunger and food insecurity. The study is part of a larger project - a partnership between FAO, IFAD and the Universidad de los Andes (UNIANDES) and its Centro de Estudios en Desarrollo Económico (CEDE) - that seeks to identify factors that lead to better articulation between social protection interventions and rural productive inclusion strategies. Growing evidence has shown that complementarity between these interventions and greater coherence between social protection and rural development policies can lead to synergies by strategically addressing constraints faced by poor rural households.