"This paper examines the impact of preschool malnutrition on subsequent human capital formation in rural Zimbabwe using a maternal fixed effects-instrumental variables (MFE-IV) estimator with a long-term panel data set. Representations of civil war and drought 'shocks' are used to identify...

The pathways from economic and social policies to improved food security and nutrition for the poor often are not well understood. Yet each day governments decide on policies that ultimately affect their well-being. How households increase their incomes, acquire food, improve health, or cope...

"This report introduces new estimates of food insecurity based on food acquisition data collected directly from households as part of national household expenditure surveys (HESs) conducted in 12 Sub-Saharan African countries. The report has three objectives: (1) to explore the extent and...

"The current food price crisis has received widespread attention, but discussions to date have largely overlooked the gender dimensions of the crisis. More than 15 years of rigorous research on gender and intrahousehold resource allocation suggest not only that men and women will be affected...

This paper uses a prospective randomized trial to assess the impact of two school feeding schemes on health and education outcomes for children from low-income households in northern rural Burkina Faso. The two school feeding programs under consideration are, on the one hand, school meals where...

Many agricultural regions in the developing world are subject to severe droughts, which can have devastating effects on household incomes and consumption, especially for the poor. To protect consumption, rural households engage in many different risk management strategies - some mainly...