Food Expenditure Demand and Dietary Diversification among Conditional Cash Transfer Beneficiary Households in Shiselweni and Lubombo Regions, Eswatini

Abstract

Food insecurity remains a persistent challenge in Eswatini’s Shiselweni and Lubombo regions, where households face chronic poverty, climate vulnerability, and limited access to diverse and nutritious foods. Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programmes have emerged as a promising policy tool for alleviating food insecurity by smoothing consumption and enabling dietary improvements among vulnerable populations. This study assesses the effect of the CCT programme on household food expenditure demand in the Shiselweni and Lubombo regions. A stratified random sample of 209 households was surveyed across six Tinkhundla constituencies. The Linear Approximate Almost Ideal Demand System (LA/AIDS), estimated using a seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) model, was applied to analyse household expenditure demand for eight food groups. The results show that cereals and tubers accounted for 49.5% of total food expenditure, indicating the dominance of staple foods among vulnerable households. Meat was identified as a luxury good (1.09), while dairy (0.57) and legumes (0.88) were classified as necessities. Participation in the CCT programme was associated with dietary improvement, as evidenced by increased budget shares for protein-rich foods. Older and more educated household heads allocated smaller budget shares to meat and larger shares to legumes and dairy products, while female-headed households spent relatively more on vegetables. The results suggest that additional household resources supported greater expenditure on both staple and nutrient-rich foods, indicating emerging dietary diversification among beneficiary households. However, the continued dominance of cereals and tubers underscores persistent resource constraints. Enhancing the nutritional impact of CCT programmes requires transfer values that keep pace with food-price inflation and the integration of targeted nutrition education. Future studies should employ panel data and detailed price information to estimate Marshallian and Hicksian demand elasticities and provide stronger evidence of the long-term effects of cash transfers on household food demand.