329 research outputs found
Social protection, household size, and its determinants: Evidence from Ethiopia
No full textWe provide new evidence on the impact of social protection interventions on household size and the factors that cause the household size to change: fertility, child fosterage, and in and out migration related to work and marriage. Using data from an intervention delivered at scale, Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP), we find that participation in the PSNP leads to an increase in household size of 0.3 members. We find no evidence that PSNP participation increases fertility and some evidence that fertility is reduced, specifically it reduces the likelihood that an adult female member gives birth by 8.1 percentage points. We reconcile this seemingly divergent findings by showing that the increase in household size arises from an increase in the number of girls aged 12 to 18 years. We present evidence that this occurs because the PSNP causes households to delay marrying out adolescent females.PRIFPRI3; ISI; 5 Strengthening Institutions and Governance; CRP2PHND; PIMCGIAR Research Programs on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM
Graduation after ten years of Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme: Surviving but still not thriving
No full textPRIFPRI3; ISI; CRP2; 5 Strengthening Institutions and Governance; ESSPPHND; DSGD; PIMCGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM
Household dairy production, dairy intake, and anthropometric outcomes in rural Bangladesh
No full textWe assess whether ownership of dairy cows is associated with a greater likelihood of consuming dairy products and with child anthropometric status in rural Bangladesh. Consistent with the assumption of imperfectly functioning markets for dairy products, ownership of dairy cows increases the likelihood that a child 6–59 months consumes milk by 7.7 percentage points with no difference in this association between boys and girls. This association nearly doubles in magnitude when we consider households that own a dairy cow that produced milk in the last year. This result is robust to the controls we use and the way in which we measure dairy cow ownership. Even when we saturate our model with child, maternal, household, wealth, as well as village fixed effects, we retain an association between dairy cow ownership and height-for-age z scores (HAZ) that is meaningful in magnitude – 0.13 standard deviations – and statistically significant at the one percent level. For children in the 12–23.9 month age group, ownership of a dairy cow is associated with a 0.37 SD increase in HAZ and a reduction of 11.3 percentage points in stunting. There is no statistically significant association with weight-for-height or wasting. These associations do not differ between boys and girls.PRIFPRI3; ISI; 2 Promoting Healthy Diets and Nutrition for all; Advancing Research on Nutrition and Agriculture (ARENA)Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion (PGI); Food and Nutrition Polic
Rural food markets and child nutrition
No full textChild dietary diversity is poor in much of rural Africa and developing Asia, prompting significant efforts to leverage agriculture to improve diets. However, growing recognition that even very poor rural households rely on markets to satisfy their demand for nutrient-rich non-staple foods warrants a much better understanding of how rural markets vary in their diversity, competitiveness, frequency and food affordability, and how such characteristics are associated with diets. This article addresses these questions using data from rural Ethiopia. Deploying a novel market survey in conjunction with an information-rich household survey, we find that children in proximity to markets that sell more non-staple food groups have more diverse diets. However, the association is small in absolute terms; moving from three non-staple food groups in the market to six is associated with an increase in the number of non-staple food groups consumed by ∼0.27 and the likelihood of consumption of any non-staple food group by 10 percentage points. These associations are similar in magnitude to those describing the relationship between dietary diversity and household production diversity; moreover, for some food groups, notably dairy, we find that household and community production of that food is especially important. These modest associations may reflect several specific features of our sample which is situated in very poor, food-insecure localities where even the relatively better off are poor in absolute terms and where, by international standards, relative prices for non-staple foods are very high.PRIFPRI3; ISI; Advancing Research on Nutrition and Agriculture (ARENA); CPR4; 2 Promoting Healthy Diets and Nutrition for all; 3 Building Inclusive and Efficient Markets, Trade Systems, and Food Industry; UNFSSPHND; DSGD; A4NHCGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH
Ethiopia’s social safety net effective in limiting COVID-19 impacts on rural food insecurity
No full textThe COVID-19 pandemic is undermining food and nutrition security on a global scale. IFPRI estimates show that globally, 80–140 million people were at risk of falling into extreme poverty in 2020, more than half in Africa south of the Sahara. The World Food Programme estimated that globally, the number of people facing acute food insecurity could double in the same period. These impacts — stemming from lost incomes due to lockdowns, fear of exposure, and medical expenses, as well as disruptions in food markets and value chains — are severely testing social protection systems in many countries. How effective are those systems in blunting these effects?Non-PRIFPRI4; CRP4; CRP2DSGD; DGO; A4NH; PIMCGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH); CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM
COVID-19 and food security in Ethiopia: Do social protection programs protect?
No full textWe assess the impact of Ethiopia’s flagship social protection program, the Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) on the adverse impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on food and nutrition security of households, mothers, and children. We use both pre-pandemic in-person household survey data and a post-pandemic phone survey. Two thirds of our respondents reported that their incomes had fallen after the pandemic began and almost half reported that their ability to satisfy their food needs had worsened. Employing a household fixed effects difference-in-difference approach, we find that the household food insecurity increased by 11.7 percentage points and the size of the food gap by 0.47 months in the aftermath of the onset of the pandemic. Participation in the PSNP offsets virtually all of this adverse change; the likelihood of becoming food insecure increased by only 2.4 percentage points for PSNP households and the duration of the food gap increased by only 0.13 months. The protective role of PSNP is greater for poorer households and those living in remote areas. Results are robust to definitions of PSNP participation, different estimators and how we account for the non-randomness of mobile phone ownership. PSNP households were less likely to reduce expenditures on health and education by 7.7 percentage points and were less likely to reduce expenditures on agricultural inputs by 13 percentage points. By contrast, mothers’ and children’s diets changed little, despite some changes in the composition of diets with consumption of animal source foods declining significantly.Non-PRIFPRI1; CRP2; 4 Transforming Agricultural and Rural Economies; Capacity StrengtheningDSGD; PIMCGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM
Assessing response fatigue in phone surveys: Experimental evidence on dietary diversity in Ethiopia
No full textThe COVID-19 pandemic has spurred interest in the use of remote data collection techniques, including phone surveys, in developing country contexts. This interest has sparked new methodological work focusing on the advantages and disadvantages of different forms of remote data collection, the use of incentives to increase response rates and how to address sample representativeness. By contrast, attention given to associated response fatigue and its implications remains limited. To assess this, we designed and implemented an experiment that randomized the placement of a survey module on women’s dietary diversity in the survey instrument. We also examine potential differential vulnerabilities to fatigue across food groups and respondents. We find that delaying the timing of mothers’ food consumption module by 15 minutes leads to 8-17 percent decrease in the dietary diversity score and a 28 percent decrease in the number of mothers who consumed a minimum of four dietary groups. This is driven by underreporting of infrequently consumed foods; the experimentally induced delay in the timing of mothers’ food consumption module led to a 40 and 11 percent decrease in the reporting of consumption of animal source foods, and fruits and vegetables, respectively. Our results are robust to changes in model specification and pass falsification tests. Responses by older and less educated mothers and those from larger households are more vulnerable to measurement error due to fatigue.Non-PRIFPRI1; CRP2; 4 Transforming Agricultural and Rural Economies; Capacity StrengtheningDSGD; PIMCGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM
Respondent fatigue reduces dietary diversity scores reported from mobile phone surveys in Ethiopia during the COVID-19 Pandemic
No full textPRIFPRI3; ISI; PR; 3 Building Inclusive and Efficient Markets, Trade Systems, and Food Industry; CRP2DSGD; PIMCGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM
Transfer Modality Research Initiative: Impacts of combining social protection and nutrition in Bangladesh
No full textIn Bangladesh, social protection programs have the potential to uplift the most vulnerable out of poverty. Until recently, however, these programs have had little impact on nutrition. Results from a randomized controlled trial in Bangladesh – the Transfer Modality Research Initiative – provides the proof of concept that combining social safety net transfers with nutrition behavior change communication (BCC) can significantly improve household food security and child nutrition, and these impacts can be sustained over time.Non-PRIFPRI1; CRP4; Transfer Modality Research Initiative (TMRI); PRSSP; CRP2; 2 Promoting Healthy Diets and Nutrition for all; 5 Strengthening Institutions and GovernancePHND; A4NH; PIMCGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH); CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM
Storytelling for persuasion: Insights from community health workers on how they engage family members to improve adoption of recommended maternal nutrition and breastfeeding behaviours in rural Bangladesh
No full textCommunity health workers (CHWs) increasingly provide interpersonal counselling to childbearing women and their families to improve adoption of recommended maternal and child nutrition behaviours. Little is known about CHWs' first-hand experiences garnering family support for improving maternal nutrition and breastfeeding practices in low-resource settings. Using focused ethnography, we drew insights from the strategies that CHWs used to persuade influential family members to support recommendations on maternal diet, rest and breastfeeding in a behaviour change communication trial in rural Bangladesh. We interviewed 35 CHWs providing at-home interpersonal counselling to pregnant women and their families in seven ‘Alive & Thrive’ intervention sites. In-depth probing focused on how CHWs addressed lack of family support. Thematic coding based on Fisher's narrative paradigm revealed strategic use of three rhetorical principles by CHWs: ethos (credibility), pathos (emotion) and logos (logic). CHWs reported selectively targeting pregnant women, husbands and mothers-in-law based on their influence on behavioural adoption. Key motivators to support recommended behaviours were improved foetal growth and child intelligence. Improved maternal health was the least motivating outcome, even among mothers. Logically coherent messaging resonated well with husbands, while empathetic counselling was additionally required for mothers. Mothers-in-law were most intransigent, but were persuaded via emotional appeals. Persuasion on maternal rest was most effort-intensive, resulting in contextually appealing but scientifically inaccurate messaging. Our study demonstrates that CHWs can offer important insights on context-relevant, feasible strategies to improve family support and uptake of nutrition recommendations. It also identifies the need for focused CHW training and monitoring to address scientifically flawed counselling narratives.PRIFPRI5; 2 Promoting Healthy Diets and Nutrition for all; ISI; 4 Transforming Agricultural and Rural EconomiesPHNDCGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH
- …
