Supporting resilience of vulnerable youth in urban Côte d’Ivoire amidst the COVID-19 pandemic : evidence from a randomized control trial
Date
2023-10
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Abstract
In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, state responses have included reactivating protective systems to mitigate the vulnerability of the poor. While the evidence for these systems in normal times is well established in the literature, there is paucity of evidence on their effects on households during the pandemic. This paper explores the impact of an improved post-COVID-19 adaptation and recovery scheme on marginalized youth. Specifically, we test whether the combination of cash transfers, business literacy, and soft skills (a replication of government intervention) leads to increased mitigation of the adverse effect the health shock and reshapes resilience. We use a randomized controlled trial of 265 at-risk youth, in which 130 are randomly assigned to the above-mentioned treatment and 135 others are in the control group. Our results suggest that a combination of business training for youth and unconditional cash transfers may increase the chances of adapting to unexpected situations. We found that food consumption increased by 38.6 percentage points and non-food expenditures by 38.9 percentage points. The program also improved the likelihood of being able to run a microbusiness by 18.5 percentage points. Further results show that the program can lead to a reduction in misperceptions about COVID-19. These results call for an integrated approach to address resilience of marginalized groups during an exogenous shock.
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Keywords
COVID-19, SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH, MARGINALIZED YOUTH, COTE D’IVOIRE, SOUTH OF SAHARA