Indonesia: National Community Empowerment Program

SIEF Cluster

Health (Conditional Cash Transfers)

Country

Indonesia

The Challenge

To determine the best method to improve maternal and child health and
education outcomes by evaluating a large-scale pilot program that gave
block grants to villages in rural areas.

The Project

The pilot, called National Community Empowerment, distributed block
grants to sub-districts in randomly-selected rural villages based on how
well the villages did on 12 health indicators.

The Findings

Cash incentives based on the performance of the village in achieving
specific health measurements led to better health outcomes, particularly
in poorer areas of the village that had initially shown worse performance.
Weight checks for children increased, and there were decreases in
malnutrition and stunting. More pregnant women took iron supplements
obtained at antenatal care visits.

The Impact

The Government of Indonesia decided to expand the pilot to three
additional provinces and to emphasize interventions that curbed
stunting, which were highly successful in the pilot project.

Timeline

2007-2011