An evaluation of the World Food Programme’s fresh food voucher pilot in Habru district, Amhara, could not measure its effect on diets because most households did not receive monthly transfers, WFP said.
A vegetable seller in Ankober, Amhara region, June 2014 (Jeanot, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0) [file photo]
The pilot gave households with pregnant or breastfeeding women or children aged 6 to 23 months an electronic voucher for fruit, vegetables and some animal-source foods such as eggs and milk. It ran in 12 Productive Safety Net Programme kebeles of Habru woreda with a $4.3 million budget from Germany’s KfW development bank and the Government of Australia. The mobile-banking company Hello-Cash delivered the vouchers; recipients got a text message and then bought food from participating traders.
Its goal was to improve dietary diversity in the first 1,000 days, from pregnancy to a child’s second birthday, when diets in Amhara are among the poorest in Ethiopia. The pilot tested two voucher values adjusted for family size: $12 or $21 a month for households of up to two people, $14 or $23 for three to five, and $17 or $26 for six or more.
The programme was due to start in January 2018 but began only in June 2018 because of insecurity in the area. Evaluators ran a randomized controlled trial with surveys in December 2017 and December 2018, but most households did not receive vouchers every month, and nutrition education sessions had barely started by the second survey.
Purchase records suggested that larger vouchers made households somewhat more likely to buy costlier fruits such as mangoes and oranges, which are rich in vitamins A and C. There was no clear difference for animal-source foods, possibly because few voucher traders stocked them. Much of the extra spending went on onions and potatoes, foods already widely eaten and chosen because they store well. Markets offered more fruit and vegetables, though some feared prices had risen.
In more than 60 percent of households the father helped feed the child, and women made most decisions on what the family ate. The evaluators called the evidence of impact inconclusive. They recommended reliable monthly transfers, coordinators in each kebele and a complaints mechanism, dropping onions and potatoes from the scheme, nutrition education for all beneficiaries, training in cooking and preserving fresh food, and close monitoring of market prices and quality. The pilot ended in January 2019 as the programme expanded to other districts in the region.
Sources: World Food Programme, ReliefWeb