Down with diarrhea: Using fuzzy regression discontinuity design to link communal water supply with health

This paper contributes to the existing literature by demonstrating that the provision of communal water supply can be effective in improving child health if the targeted population shows adequate hygiene awareness and behavior. Until now, the fast growing body of literature on water development interventions could not establish a significant effect of communal water supply on health. The insignificant health effect regarding communal water supply (in contrast to other types of water interventions) found in meta-studies may be explained by recontamination of the water between the source and the point of use; and by the lack of studies which address the mode of selection into treatment of water programs which may result in biased estimates. To identify the health effect of communal water supply, a fuzzy Regression Discontinuity Design set-up is applied using an eligibility criterion as source of exogenous variation. The paper also provides practical insights in a little explored extension of the fuzzy Regression Discontinuity Design which may have great relevance for applied research: As occurs often in practice, the forcing variable determining treatment could not be directly observed. For this reason, a slightly noisy measure was reconstructed. To convince the critical reader of the validity of this approach, a variety of robustness checks are carried out and the results are cross-validated through two additional identification strategies: a village fixed effects and an instrumental variable approach

Assets for alimentation? The nutritional impact of assets-based programming in Niger

A recent strand of aid programming aims to develop household assets by removing the stresses associated with meeting basic nutritional needs. In this study, the authors posit that such nutrition-sensitive programmes can reduce malnourishment by encouraging further investment in diet. To test this hypothesis, they analyse the World Food Programme’s (WFP) Protracted Relief and Recovery Operation (PRRO), in Niger, a conflict-affected, low-income country with entrenched food insecurity. Under the PRRO, a household falls into one of three groups at end line: receiving no assistance, receiving nutrition-specific assistance, or receiving nutrition-specific assistance and nutrition-sensitive food for assets-based programming. If provided alone, food aid has no nutritional impact relative to receiving no assistance. However, the study observes pronounced positive effects if food aid is paired with assets-based programming. The authors conclude, first, that certain forms of food aid function well in complex, insecure environments; second, that assets-based programmes deliver positive nutritional spillovers; and, third, that there are theoretical grounds to believe that assets-based nutrition-sensitive programmes interact positively with nutrition-specific programming