Evidence from South Sudan

Food insecurity remains a severe threat for people living in least developed and conflict-affected settings. Development organizations frequently apply small-scale agricultural support to strengthen food security in such settings. However, impact evaluation is challenging in these fragile contexts. Thus, rigorous evidence remains scarce and inconclusive. Applying a difference-in-differences approach together with propensity score matching on household survey data from South Sudan, I test the impact of small-scale agricultural interventions coupled with a cash transfer on food security outcomes in a least developed setting highly affected by conflict. My findings emphasize that after one year, the treatment significantly improved household food security measured by the Minimum Dietary Diversity Score. On average, treatment households consumed one additional food type per day due to the support. However, in absence of the cash component, the agricultural intervention did not improve dietary diversity substantially. Other food security measures do not show significant impacts of the combined intervention. The results indicate that the support was effective in maintaining a constant harvest output while control households faced a clear declining trend. Covariate adverse shocks like floods and droughts do not show heterogeneous treatment effects while idiosyncratic shocks such as a disease of the household head inhibit the positive programme impact on dietary diversity. The results imply that small-scale agricultural interventions contribute to diversify household diets in least developed and conflict-affected settings in the short-run

Effect of an Integrated School Garden and Home Garden Intervention on Anemia Among School-Aged Children in Nepal: Evidence From a Cluster Randomised Controlled Trial

This publication is with permission of the rights owner (Sage) freely accessible.Background: Integrated school and home garden interventions can improve health outcomes in low-income countries, but rigorous evidence remains scarce, particularly for school-aged children and to reduce anemia. Objective: We test if an integrated school and home garden intervention, implemented at pilot stage, improves hemoglobin levels among school children (aged 9-13 years) in a rural district in the mid-hills of Nepal. Methods: We use a cluster randomized controlled trial with 15 schools each in the control and treatment groups (n = 680 school children). To test if nutritional improvements translate into a reduction of anemia prevalence, hemoglobin data were collected 6 months after intervention support had ended. Using structural equation modeling, we estimate the direct and indirect effects of the treatment through several pathways, including nutritional knowledge, good food and hygiene practices, and dietary diversity. Results: The integrated school and home garden intervention did not lead to a direct significant reduction in anemia. Causal positive changes of the treatment on nutritional outcomes, although significant, are not strong enough to impact hemoglobin levels. The program improved hemoglobin levels indirectly for children below 12 by increasing the use of good food and hygiene practices at home. These practices are associated with higher hemoglobin levels, particularly for girls, young children, and in households where caregivers are literate. Conclusions: Even integrated school and home garden interventions are not sufficient to reduce anemia among school children. Incorporating behavioral change components around food and hygiene practices into integrated garden interventions is important to unlocking their health impacts.Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation https://doi.org/10.13039/100000865Peer Reviewe