Learning together: Experimental evidence on the impact of group-based nutrition interventions in rural Bihar

Learning together: Experimental evidence on the impact of group-based nutrition interventions in rural Bihar PDF Author: Raghunathan, Kalyani
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 52

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Book Description
Despite improvements over the last decade or more, India still accounts for a large proportion of the global prevalence of maternal and child undernutrition. We use a cluster-randomized controlled design and two waves of panel data on more than 2000 households from Bihar to analyse the impact on diet quality and anthropometry of a health and nutrition intervention delivered through an at-scale women’s self-help group (SHGs) platform. We find that the intervention had small but significant impacts on women and children’s dietary diversity, with the main impacts coming from an increase in the consumption of fruits and vegetables and dairy, however, it had no impact on women’s body mass index. We identify several potential pathways to impact. To the extent that SHGs can effect broad-based social change, their current reach to millions of women makes them a powerful platform for accelerating improvements in maternal and child health and nutrition outcomes.

Learning together: Experimental evidence on the impact of group-based nutrition interventions in rural Bihar

Learning together: Experimental evidence on the impact of group-based nutrition interventions in rural Bihar PDF Author: Raghunathan, Kalyani
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 52

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Book Description
Despite improvements over the last decade or more, India still accounts for a large proportion of the global prevalence of maternal and child undernutrition. We use a cluster-randomized controlled design and two waves of panel data on more than 2000 households from Bihar to analyse the impact on diet quality and anthropometry of a health and nutrition intervention delivered through an at-scale women’s self-help group (SHGs) platform. We find that the intervention had small but significant impacts on women and children’s dietary diversity, with the main impacts coming from an increase in the consumption of fruits and vegetables and dairy, however, it had no impact on women’s body mass index. We identify several potential pathways to impact. To the extent that SHGs can effect broad-based social change, their current reach to millions of women makes them a powerful platform for accelerating improvements in maternal and child health and nutrition outcomes.

Learning Together

Learning Together PDF Author: Kalyani Raghunathan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description


The role of social identity in shaping economic choices: Evidence from women’s self-help groups in India

The role of social identity in shaping economic choices: Evidence from women’s self-help groups in India PDF Author: Alvi, Muzna Fatima
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 35

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Book Description
Group-based interventions are fast gaining traction in developing countries, often bolstering existing government service delivery systems. Such groups provide development programs with a means of extending their reach to households and individuals that might otherwise not seek public goods and services. However, the very reliance on the notion of “community” in these programs can constrain participation to those with a shared identity. In India, shared caste identity remains a central, and often controversial, element in many community-based programs. We explore the salience of caste identity with a field experiment conducted among women’s self-help groups in an eastern state of India. The experiment focused on the provision of information on nutrition, diet, and kitchen gardens. Specifically, we test the interplay between (a) the provision of information to self-help groups and (b) the caste identity of the information provider relative to the group’s caste identity, to assess what matters more –the message or the messenger. We randomize two treatments – an information treatment and ahomophily treatment – and measure the effect of these treatments on two outcomes: group members’willingness to contribute to a group-owned club good (a collectively managed kitchen garden), andindividual members’ retention of the information they received. We find that (1) information is veryimportant, (2) homophily, or shared caste identity with the information provider, is not that important,but (3) higher-caste information providers elicit greater willingness to contribute. These findings haveseveral implications for the design of public programs that rely on community-based organizations andagents as implementing partners and may thus be susceptible to identity issues, such as the exclusionof lower castes from certain occupations, public spaces or public goods.

Social networks, mobility, and political participation: The potential for women’s self-help groups to improve access and use of public entitlement schemes in India

Social networks, mobility, and political participation: The potential for women’s self-help groups to improve access and use of public entitlement schemes in India PDF Author: Kumar, Neha
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 53

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Book Description
Women’s self-help groups (SHGs) have increasingly been used as a vehicle for social, political, and economic empowerment as well as a platform for service delivery. Although a growing body of literature shows evidence of positive impacts of SHGs on various measures of empowerment, our understanding of ways in which SHGs improve awareness and use of public services is limited. To fill this knowledge gap, this paper first examines how SHG membership is associated with political participation, awareness, and use of government entitlement schemes. It further examines the effect of SHG membership on various measures of social networks and mobility. Using data collected in 2015 across five Indian states and matching methods to correct for endogeneity of SHG membership, we find that SHG members are more politically engaged. We also find that SHG members are not only more likely to know of certain public entitlements than non-members, they are significantly more likely to avail of a greater number of public entitlement schemes. Additionally, SHG members have wider social networks and greater mobility as compared to non-members. Our results suggest that SHGs have the potential to increase their members’ ability to hold public entities accountable and demand what is rightfully theirs. An important insight, however, is that the SHGs themselves cannot be expected to increase knowledge of public entitlement schemes in absence of a deliberate effort to do so by an external agency.

Combating Micronutrient Deficiencies

Combating Micronutrient Deficiencies PDF Author: Brian Thompson
Publisher: CABI
ISBN: 1845937147
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
This book, inclusive of 19 chapters, provides discussions on the benefits and limitations of food-based approaches for the prevention and control of micronutrient malnutrition. Different chapters focus on specific relevant topics, including current developments in food-based approaches and their program applications, relevance of agricultural interventions to nutrition, impact of multi-sectoral programmes with food-based approaches components in alleviating undernutrition and micronutrient malnutrition, animal-source foods as a food-based approach to address nutrient deficiencies, aquaculture's role in improving food and nutrition security, benefits of vegetables and fruits in preventing and combating micronutrient malnutrition, benefits of food-based approaches for overcoming single specific micronutrient deficiencies, and food fortification. This book will be of great use to professionals interested in public health, human nutrition, micronutrient deficiency interventions, food and nutrition security policy interventions, and agricultural research.

A Germ's Journey

A Germ's Journey PDF Author: Katie Laird
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781909339934
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 20

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Book Description
This delightful board book follows the journey of a germ using unique heat-sensitive pages and combining interaction, play and learning, showing pre-schoolers the importance of clean hands. The journey, from the toilet seat to the tummy (and out again!), explores the concepts of germs being invisible to the naked eye, multiplying and causing illness. By placing their warm hands on the thermochromic patches, the multiplying germs are revealed. The simple, bright and bold illustrations by Charlie Evans allow children to develop an understanding of science and health from a young age, while having fun in the process

The impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on maternal and child malnutrition in Myanmar: What to expect, and how to protect

The impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on maternal and child malnutrition in Myanmar: What to expect, and how to protect PDF Author: Headey, Derek D.
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 15

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Book Description
The COVID-19 crisis in Myanmar poses a very serious risk to the nutritional status of vulnerable populations, notably women and children, as well as poor urban populations and internally displaced persons. The COVID-19 crisis will hit vulnerable groups through multiple mechanisms.

Accelerating technical change through video-mediated agricultural extension: Evidence from Ethiopia

Accelerating technical change through video-mediated agricultural extension: Evidence from Ethiopia PDF Author: Abate, Gashaw T.
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 74

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Book Description
Despite a rapidly growing enthusiasm around applications of information and communications technologies (ICTs) to smallholder agriculture in developing countries, there are still many questions on the effectiveness of ICT-based approaches. This study assesses the effects of videomediated agricultural extension service provision on farmers’ knowledge and adoption of improved agricultural technologies and practices in Ethiopia. The study focuses on a program piloted by the Government of Ethiopia and Digital Green and poses three questions. First, to what extent does video-mediated extension lead to increased uptake of improved agricultural technologies and practices by smallholder farmers? Second, is video-mediated extension targeted at both spouses of the household more effective than when only targeted at the (typically male) household head? Third, how cost-effective is a video-mediated approach to extension provision? The study explores these questions with a randomized controlled trial designed to evaluate the video-mediated approach as applied to three priority crops (teff, wheat, maize) and three technologies (row planting, precise seeding rates, and urea dressing). The trial was implemented in 347 kebeles (village clusters) during the 2017 meher (rainy) season in Ethiopia’s four most agriculturally important regional states. Analysis of data from our surveys of 2,422 households and 896 extension agents indicates that the video-mediated approach is more effective than the conventional approach in achieving several key outcomes. Specifically, we find that videomediated extension reaches a wider audience than the conventional approach and leads to higher levels of agricultural knowledge and uptake of technologies in those kebeles randomly assigned to the program. While our results do point to greater participation and greater knowledge of female spouses in kebeles where both male and female spouses were targeted by the program, we do not find clear evidence that the more inclusive approach translated into higher uptake of the subject technologies and practices. Finally, we find that the video-mediated approach becomes less costly as the scale of operation increases.

Transforming Food Systems for a Rising India

Transforming Food Systems for a Rising India PDF Author: Prabhu Pingali
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9783030144081
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This open access book examines the interactions between India’s economic development, agricultural production, and nutrition through the lens of a “Food Systems Approach (FSA).” The Indian growth story is a paradoxical one. Despite economic progress over the past two decades, regional inequality, food insecurity and malnutrition problems persist. Simultaneously, recent trends in obesity along with micro-nutrient deficiency portend to a future public health crisis. This book explores various challenges and opportunities to achieve a nutrition-secure future through diversified production systems, improved health and hygiene environment and greater individual capability to access a balanced diet contributing to an increase in overall productivity. The authors bring together the latest data and scientific evidence from the country to map out the current state of food systems and nutrition outcomes. They place India within the context of other developing country experiences and highlight India’s status as an outlier in terms of the persistence of high levels of stunting while following global trends in obesity. This book discusses the policy and institutional interventions needed for promoting a nutrition-sensitive food system and the multi-sectoral strategies needed for simultaneously addressing the triple burden of malnutrition in India.

India's Undernourished Children

India's Undernourished Children PDF Author:
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 0821365886
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Book Description
"The prevalence of child undernutrition in India is among the highest in the world, nearly double that of Sub-Saharan Africa, with dire consequences for morbidity, mortality, productivity and economic growth. Drawing on qualitative studies and quantitative evidence from large household surveys, this book explores the dimensions of child undernutrition in India and examines the effectiveness of the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS)program, India's main early child development intervention, in addressing it. Although levels of undernutrition in India declined modestly during the 1990s, the reductions lagged behind those achieved by other countries with similar economic growth. Nutritional inequalities across different states and socioeconomic and demographic groups remain large. Although the ICDS program appears to be well-designed and well-placed to address the multi-dimensional causes of malnutrition in India, several problems exist that prevent it from reaching its potential. The book concludes with a discussion of a number of concrete actions that can be taken to bridge the gap between the policy intentions of ICDS and its actual implementation."