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The economics and nutritional impacts of food assistance policies and programs

ESA Working Paper 13-04











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    FAO School Food and Nutrition Framework 2019
    The FAO School Food and Nutrition Framework aims to support governments and institutions in developing, transforming or strengthening their school policies, programmes and other initiatives for an enhanced and synergistic impact on diets, child and adolescent nutrition, community socioeconomic development and local food systems. The Framework represents a direct response to the international call for improving nutrition along the life cycle and for transforming food systems to be conducive of better diets, in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2) and the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition (2016-2025). It provides a holistic approach that capitalizes on complementary interventions and the most effective programmatic options to obtain benefits throughout the food, nutrition and education nexus, using the school setting as the center for development.
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    Monitoring and analysing food and agricultural policies in Africa – Synthesis report 2013 2013
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    The synthesis report by FAO’s Monitoring African Food and Agricultural Policies (MAFAP) team, is the first ever attempt to systematically analyze agriculture and food security policies in several African countries, using common methodology over years. The report found that in the period between 2005 and 2010, the policy environment and performance of domestic markets depressed producer prices in the ten African countries analyzed, though the trend is improving. Most governments resorted to m arket and trade policies to protect consumers and keep food prices down in the reference period whilst budgetary transfers, were mainly been used to support producers. The report concludes that producer prices would improve significantly if inefficiencies in domestic value chains were eliminated through better targeted policies. These inefficiencies however seem to be increasing in all ten countries surveyed. The current MAFAP partner countries are: Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mala wi, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda.
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    Article
    Nutrition-Sensitive Social Protection Programs within Food Systems 2021
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    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.

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