“Min Ila” cash transfer program for displaced Syrian children in Lebanon (UNICEF and WFP), Impact Evaluation Report Endline

In the 2016–17 school year, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), in partnership with the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and in coordination with the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MEHE) in Lebanon, started to pilot a child-focused cash transfer program for displaced Syrian children in Lebanon. The program, known as the No Lost Generation (NLG) or “Min Ila” (meaning “from/to”) was designed to reduce negative coping strategies harmful to children and reduce barriers to children’s school attendance, including financial barriers and reliance on child labor. UNICEF Lebanon contracted the American Institute for Research (AIR) to help UNICEF Office of Research (OoR) design and implement an impact evaluation of the program.1 The purpose of the impact evaluation, one of the first rigorous studies of a social protection program supporting children in a complex displacement setting, is to monitor the program’s effects on recipients and provide evidence to UNICEF, WFP, and MEHE for decisions regarding the program’s future. This report investigates and discusses the program’s impacts on child well-being outcomes, including food security, health, child work, child subjective well-being, enrollment, and attendance, after 1 year of program implementation.