New Incentives

New Incentives provides a small amount of money to parents or carers of small children as an incentive to get their child fully vaccinated. This increases vaccination coverage and rates of immunity resulting in fewer children dying from preventable diseases.

Problem

Nigeria has the second highest mortality rate for children under five in the world at 13% (120 deaths per 1,000 live births) despite being home to only 3% of the world’s population. One of the causes is a low immunisation rate. An estimated 40% of deaths of children under five years old are due to diseases which are preventable through vaccination. Northwest Nigeria, the region where New Incentives operates, has the lowest immunisation rate in the country.

High rate of child mortality in Nigeria

Solution

Vaccinating babies and children is extremely effective in preventing unnecessary deaths. New Incentives focuses on promoting four vaccines:

1) BCG (against tuberculosis)
2) PENTA (against diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis B and Haemophilus influenza type b)
3) PCV (against pneumococcal disease)
4) MCV (against measles)

Vaccinating children, doubling the percentage of vaccinated babies

The provision of small cash payments of around €10 to parents/carers has been shown to boost vaccination coverage in rural areas. This payment is given to parents/carers when they have had their child fully vaccinated. It covers travel expenses and other costs incurred with the vaccination procedure.

Impact

Researchers from IDinsight and Hanovia Limited conducted an intervention study from July 2017 to February 2020 on the impact of New Incentives’ All Babies programme on routine childhood vaccine coverage in North West Nigeria¹. The study took place in 167 clinics in Katsina, Zamfara and Jigawa States. It demonstrated that the percentage of fully immunised babies between 12 and 16 months doubled as a direct result of the programme. This extended the vaccination coverage from about a quarter to just over half of all babies.
New Incentives continuously collects data to monitor whether or not the cash reaches the intended recipient parent or carer.

Cash incentives are a proven, cost-effective way to increase vaccination coverage and save lives.

Organisation

New Incentives has paid out more than 1.2 million cash incentives after determining that a full vaccination procedure had taken place since its foundation in 2011. Science, evidence and data are the cornerstones of the design and implementation of New Incentives’ programmes.

GiveWell: “New Incentives is one of our top-rated charities and we believe it offers donors an excellent opportunity to do good with their donations².”