||||**No. of Villages (HHs**<br>**sampled,**<br>**baseline/midline)**|
|---|---|---|---|
|||**Control Arm: Cash Only**|**77 (963/1204)**|
||**Receiving**<br>**HDCT h**|**Behaviorally Enhanced Arm 1: Cash & Mother**<br>**Leaders (ML)**|**77 (945/1200)**|
|All<br>52<br>communes|**cas**<br>**transfers (38**<br>|**Behaviorally Enhanced Arm 2: Cash & MLs &**<br>**Plan-making**|**77 (970/1197)**|
||**communes)**|**Behaviorally Enhanced Arm 3: Cash & MLs &**<br>**Affirmation**|**78 (1005/1205)**|
||Pure Control (13|communes): No cash|70 (601/1200)|

Note that the results in this paper compare the households in the ‘Cash Only” arm (the ‘control group’) to the three behaviorally enhanced arms. The results of the evaluation of the cash transfer program itself – i.e., the comparison of households in the communes which received cash only to households in the communes randomized to be ‘pure controls’ can be found in the Appendix Tables.

# **4.2: Data Sources**

Key baseline and outcome data come from household surveys. Data were collected in two waves, with the baseline ( _N_ = 3,883, or N=4,484 including the households in the pure control/no-cash condition) occurring about 30 days before the first payments in each district, and the midline ( _N_ = 4,806, or N=6,006 including the households in the pure control/no-cash condition) after about 20 months.<sup>17</sup> The survey featured modules on household consumption, assets, food security, educational attendance and parenting behaviors taken from prior national Demographic and Health Surveys<sup>18</sup> to facilitate comparability for policy purposes.

For child development progress, the Malawi Development Assessment Test (MDAT) pioneered by Gladstone et al. (2010) was adapted to and validated in the local context under the supervision of one of the test’s original creators and a local child development expert in view of its age group applicability and the possibility of relatively close contextual adaptation. The MDAT consists of a series of progressively more difficult activities conducted by a specially trained facilitator with individual children, with separate activity streams to measure skills in the areas of speech/language, fine motor, and social interaction. The traditional Malawi Development Assessment Tool (MDAT) assesses child developmental status across four domains: gross motor skills, fine motor skills, language learning, and social skills, with a composite score that sums across all four domains. There are 136 items, 34 in each domain of development, for use with children 0-71 months of age. In the development of the original MDAT, all items were rigorously tested through an iterative process that allowed the best performing items to be selected. All items use locally sourced materials that are familiar to young Malawian children. The assessor identifies a starting point for the assessment based upon the age of the subject. Each item is then assessed in one of three ways: “pass” (the subject completes the item successfully), “fail” (the subject is unable to complete the item), or “don’t know” (the child is uncooperative or unwell). The assessor stops assessment in a specific domain when the subject fails seven consecutive items. For scoring, each item is converted to a numerical score, zero for a non-pass and one for a pass. The passed items are summed within each domain, resulting in four separate scores (for gross motor, fine motor, communication, and social development).

As these items were created specific to the Malawian population, an ECD specialist spent a year adapting and testing the tool for the Malagasy population, changing items where necessary and exploring how to best set “start” and “stop” rules for the Malagasy population. During this testing period, the specialist also identified that

> 17 The survey was done by direct interview of the household head and / or his spouse on the basis of a standard and pre-coded questionnaire. The survey used a tablet computer (electronic questionnaire) instead of a traditional paper questionnaire. On average the duration of the interview at a household was 52 minutes. The enumerator asked the questions on the survey, prompted oral responses from the participant, and collected those responses on the tablet.

> 18 See https://www.instat.mg/ for more details.

9