Shifting sands: The changing case for monetizing project food aid in Bangladesh

Monetization involves local sale of food aid commodities and using the cash to finance other programs. To explore the likely consequences of monetization, this paper combines a stockpile of recent microeconomic evidence from food and cash-for-work projects in Bangladesh together with a multimarket simulation model. Results suggest that a switch from food-for-work's (FFW) in-kind deliveries of wheat to an identical wheat-financed cash-for-work (CFW) program would unambiguously improve welfare of the poor.