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This paper exploits a unique panel dataset of households in Mopti whose baseline was collected in January 2012, just prior to the outset of the civil war in Mali. The follow-up survey was implemented in January 2017, in the midst of a rapidly intensifying armed conflict in the region. This paper addresses three research questions: (i) which pre-crisis characteristics of villages best explain the subsequent local presence of armed groups and local intensity of conflict-related violence? (ii) How the presence of armed groups and conflict-related violence are related to each other, and how they manifest themselves in the lives of communities? and (iii) what role the presence of armed groups and conflict-related violence play in the geographic allocation of aid? Answering these questions help us shed light on the determinants of vulnerability to conflict, on processes of armed conflict and on the relationships between aid and conflict.

Poultry rearing is widespread in rural Burkina Faso, and contributes to both the food security and cash income of smallholders farmers. The landlocked status of the country, coupled with increasing demand for poultry in urban areas implies an opportunity for significant, pro-poor growth through this sector. We use data from a survey of 1800 poultry producers to characterize smallholder poultry producers and their practices. We find that 88% of households in program areas raised poultry. While access to vaccination services and veterinary medicines at the village level is high, uptake of these services is limited, especially among smaller producers. Fewer women than men own poultry, but most women report that they control the proceeds from sales of their own birds, indicating the potential for development of the poultry sector to generate relatively equitable gains in terms of gender. Access to credit appears to increase women’s poultry ownership, but remains limited, as does women’s access to poultry output markets.

Home-Grown School Feeding Programs (HGSFPs) are becoming important policy instruments to improve food security, nutrition, education, agricultural production, and local economic growth (Adeyanju et al., 2024; Abay et al., 2021; Sitali, 2021; Takeshima et al., 2018; Fernandes et al., 2016; Karisa and Ordho, 2014; WFP, 2013). While the potential of HGFSPs to tackle undernutrition and micronutrient deficiencies is well documented (Alderman, Bundy, Gelli, 2024), their role in supporting local value chains and smallholder farmers remains an area of active inquiry. Following international trends and lessons, Nigeria started delivering HGSFP which includes utilizing locally sourced foods instead of imports (Dennis et al., 2021). These programs provide school meals using locally sourced food from smallholder farmers within the same community (Sumberg & Sabates-Wheeler, 2011). In 2004, Nigeria’s National HGSFP was piloted in 12 states, covering all six geopolitical zones. However, the national government abruptly halted the program, with Osun relaunching the program in 2012 using state-level funds. Osun State is currently the only Nigerian state that implements the program—and considered one of the more successful states for implementing it. Despite stoppages of the program, lessons learned from the pilot phase offered valuable operational and policy insights for implementing the National HGSFP in 2016, with the aim of using farm produce locally grown by smallholder farmers to provide children with nutritious mid-day meals on every school day (Adeyanju et al., 2024).

Our paper aims to investigating the impact of conflict on population displacement, agricultural production and agricultural assets, and the mitigating effect of food aid. The paper is structured in the following way. In the next section we provide a description of the survey data used in the analysis. Section 3 describes the interplay of conflict and emergency aid in the area. Section 4 analyses the impact of conflict on agriculture, while section 5 investigates to what extent emergency aid mitigated the negative impact of conflict on agriculture. Section 6 discusses the limitations of the study and suggests some potential future lines of research.

Background: Low quality diets are a public health problem affecting individuals of all ages worldwide. Nudging for Good (NFG) is a new research project aimed at developing, validating, and examining the feasibility of using artificial intelligence (AI)-based technology to improve adolescent girls' diets in urban Ghana and Vietnam. Objectives: Provide evidence to support the design of a new mobile phone intervention including: a) identifying the demand for mobile app to improve diets in adolescent girls; b) defining the intervention objectives and activities to be delivered via a mobile app; and c) assessing the potential for nudging functionality to be incorporated in the mobile app. Methods: This study used mixed methods including both literature and nutrition-related app reviews, as well as focus group discussions. A literature review was conducted using PubMed and Google Scholar databases, and intervention studies using technology to improve nutrition outcomes of adolescents were included. Nine focus group discussions (five in Ghana and four in Vietnam) were undertaken with 61 girls to gauge smartphone and internet access and use and to obtain feedback on the prototype of a mobile app. Results: Nine studies met the selection criteria for the literature review, including seven randomized control trials (RCTs) and two systematic reviews. The evidence from the literature on how technology-based nutrition interventions should be conducted and what should be the best outcomes of success was mixed. Most of the 22 apps reviewed required manual entry of dietary information, and recommended diets based on motivation to change body weight. In the focus groups discussions, the adolescents suggested modifications on the prototype of the mobile app we presented, and indicated possibility to regularly take pictures of foods and beverages during meal time. Conclusion: We did not find an app available in either the Ghana or Vietnam markets that could improve dietary quality of adolescents without focusing on weight. Most apps available only had manual features to log food intake, which is time consuming. Moreover, adolescents expressed interest in using a new, modified version of the app we presented. We aim at developing a new mobile phone application based on AI technology that gives personalized and reliable nutrition advice to improve adolescent girls’ diets. However, the literature review was not conclusive on what should be the characteristics of an app and how interventions to measure an app’s impact on dietary quality should be conducted.

The SELEVER study is a five-year impact evaluation in Burkina Faso designed to address key knowledge gaps on the impact of poultry value chain interventions on the diets, health and nutritional status of women and children.

Social protection programs such as cash or food transfers support current poverty and inequality reduction goals, while at the same time enhance future productivity through human capital investments. Yet, the quantification of their overall productivity and equity benefits is challenging. We address this question utilizing a new methodology that quantifies productivity gains from learning as well as an approach for assessing social protection benefits. We do so by combining data on distributional benefits stemming from current poverty reduction in conjunction with future human capital gains in the context of a large-scale national school feeding program in Ghana. We develop a straightforward approach to map effect sizes from randomized controlled studies into broader economic analyses. In addition, we include the often recognized, but seldom quantified, distributional impacts of multi-sectoral investments. Our methodology is relevant to a broad range of social protection programs that have multidimensional benefits spanning both human capital improvements and equity gains.

There is very limited experimental evidence of the impact of large-scale, government-led school meals programs on child educational achievements in Sub-Saharan Africa. We address this gap by reporting treatment effects from a nationwide randomized trial of the Government of Ghana’s school feeding program (GSFP) on children’s math and literacy, cognition (problem-solving ability and working memory), and composite scores of overall attainments. Based on the government’s plans to re-target and scale up the GSFP, food insecure schools and related communities across the country were randomly assigned to school feeding. After two years of implementation, program availability led to moderate increases in test scores for the average pupil in school catchment areas, ranging between 0.12 and 0.16 standard deviations. Analysis focusing on per-protocol population subgroups unveiled substantial heterogeneity: school feeding led to remarkable learning and cognitive gains for girls, poorest children, and children from the northern regions. Program effects were at least twice as large as for the average child. Increases in enrolment, grade attainment, and shifts in time use toward schooling time constituted potential mechanisms for impact. We conclude the program combined social protection with equitable human capital accumulation, thus contributing to the imperative of “learning for all” set in the Sustainable Development Goals.

Governments and international development partners investing over $40 USD billion a year in school meals have shown interest in linking these programs with agriculture sector development, through what has become known as “Home-Grown” school feeding (HGSF). Nevertheless, evidence on the effectiveness of HGSF and agriculture is limited. This article reports on the findings of a three-year cluster randomized trial implemented in 58 districts of Ghana including a panel of 1,668 households. Communities were randomly assigned to 1) standard school meals; 2) HGSF or 3) control with no intervention. Post-intervention, the caterer-level analysis highlighted major challenges related to delayed program disbursements, resulting in a mismatch between budgeted and actual caterer outlay on food purchases per pupil equivalent to approximately 50% of the budgeted per child per day allocation. For caterers, by far the largest procurement channel was through traders, though there is evidence that HGSF may have increased the share of value purchased directly from smallholders. We find no strong evidence that the school feeding program or HGSF affected smallholders market structure, farm, non-farm and household income. When interpreting these null results, it is important to consider the findings of two parallel studies that showed positive effects of this national program on school children’s learning, cognition, and nutrition outcomes. The national program can still be considered as an effective social protection strategy with multiple objectives, even if the agriculture objectives remain aspirational.

Investments in social assistance programs (SAPs) in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are increasing. As investments increase, the objectives of these programs are expanding from focusing on reducing poverty to addressing other social issues such as improving diets and nutrition. At the same time, there is increasing interest in addressing all forms of malnutrition within the framework of food systems. Given the intersections between SAPs and food systems, we reviewed the effectiveness of SAPs (agriculture asset transfers, cash transfers, in-kind transfers, vouchers, public works and school meals programs) for reducing all forms of malnutrition across the lifecycle within a food systems framework. As several programs included multiple treatment arms, each representing a unique program design, we used study arm as the unit of analysis and assessed the proportion of study arms with positive or negative program impacts on diet and nutrition outcomes among men, women and children. The majority of the studies included in this review were from evaluations of agriculture asset, cash and in-kind transfer programs. There was clear evidence of positive impacts on women’s and children’s diet-related outcomes. Very few studies assessed program impact on women’s nutritional status outcomes. However, there was some evidence of impacts on increasing body mass index and hemoglobin concentration (Hb) with in-kind transfer programs. Among children, several study arms across the agriculture asset, cash and in-kind transfer programs found positive impacts on increasing height-for-age Z-score (33%-45% of study arms) and weight-for-height Z-score (33%-50% of study arms) and decreasing the prevalence of wasting (43%-60% of study arms). Cash and in-kind transfer programs also found positive effects on reducing stunting prevalence in 33% and 45% of study arms, respectively. Lastly, a few study arms assessed program impact on increasing Hb with some evidence of positive impacts in in-kind and school feeding programs. There was a paucity of relevant evidence of the effectiveness of voucher and public works programs on diet and nutrition outcomes, for men’s outcomes and on micronutrient status. Several challenges remain in understanding the potential for SAPs to improve diet and nutrition outcomes within food systems including the heterogeneity of program and evaluation designs, populations targeted by the programs and included in evaluations and indicators used to assess impact. Addressing these challenges in future evaluations is important for informing program and policy actions to improve the effectiveness of SAPs within food systems for improving diet and nutrition outcomes across the lifecycle.