About a third of Filipino children are stunted or chronically malnourished. However, there is a paucity of evidence on the socioeconomic inequalities of stunting in the Philippines. This study has two objectives. First, we discuss the wide range of determinants that explain the large...

This report presents findings from an impact evaluation of the NC program on nutrition outcomes. Specifically, it assesses the impact of the Reducing Rural Poverty and Malnutrition Project and the Poverty Reduction Fund Project, when complementing the Health and Nutrition Services Access...

At the conclusion of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) campaign in 2015, stunting among under 5-year-olds remained a major challenge in South Asia and Southeast Asia, with South Asia lagging behind-a phenomenon known as the "Asian enigma." This paper revisits the issue, focusing on...

This policy note uses the most recent available data to outline the primary factors contributing to child stunting and malnutrition in Laos. The report draws on data from the baseline round of impact evaluation surveys conducted in 2020 as part of the Nutrition Convergence Projects. By applying...

In sub-Saharan Africa, child fostering-a widespread practice in which a child moves out of the household of her biological parents-can have significant implications for a child's overall well-being. Using longitudinal data from South Africa that includes individual tracking, we employ double...

The COVID-19 pandemic intensified existing structural challenges in Africa, including poverty, weak healthcare systems, and fragile agricultural supply chains. Consequently, examining its effects remains a critical area of study. This research investigates the effect of food prices on the...

In 2015, Southern Africa experienced a drought that affected approximately 30 million people across seven countries. Using a nationally representative household panel survey data set and a remotely sensed measure of drought intensity during the 2015-16 farming season, we rigorously estimate the...

This study examines the effects of the urban productive safety net programme (uPSNP) on urban households' food insecurity (FIN) and children's school attendance in Tigray, Ethiopia. Data were collected from 333 urban households between August and September 2020. The FGT index was used to compute...

In the Philippines, children continue to face challenges in accessing healthy, sustainable diverse diets that provide sufficient nutrients for growth and development. This is especially critical given the importance of early developmental stages. The overall structure and functioning of the food...

We examine the relationship between food insecurity and urban social disorder, featuring the degree of inequality and levels of governmental repression. We develop a formal theoretical model, and our empirical results suggest that food price volatility contributes significantly to conflict...

This study is the first to establish a chronology of food crises in Germany from the sixteenth century to their disappearance in the late 1860s based on a standard methodology to detect cycles in commodity prices. To this end, we develop an aggregate rye price series, deflate it by a consumer...

In 2015, Southern Africa experienced a drought that affected approximately 30 million people across seven countries. Using a nationally representative household panel survey dataset and a remotely sensed measure of drought intensity during the 2015/16 farming season, we rigorously estimate the...

Rahman et al. (2021) study the correlation between mental health and food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh. They report that food insecurity increases in the sample and that this is associated with increased stress. This result is not reproducible from the author-provided...

Explanations for the West's escape from premature mortality have focused on chronic malnutrition or income and on public health or state capacity. We argue that by ignoring the multigenerational effects of variance in ancestors' harvests, we are underestimating the contribution of modern...

This report proposes a framework in tagging nutrition expenditures of national government agencies. The framework was developed through exhaustive literature review and validation sessions with government agencies. It comprised of five levels (5) of classification elements namely: major...

Armed conflict remains a significant global issue, with several studies highlighting its detrimental impact on the affected communities, making it a critical area of research. This study aimed to examine the effects of prolonged armed conflict on food security among urban households in Tigray,...

Can digital payments help reduce extreme hunger? Humanitarian needs are at their highest since 1945, aid budgets are falling behind, and hunger is concentrating in fragile states where repression and aid diversion present major obstacles. In such contexts, partnering directly with governments is...

We provide the first estimates of broad-based health transmission between parents and their young children in India. The correlations between maternal health and child health outcomes - such as anemia, stunting, and body mass index - are approximately 0.20. When aggregating these health measures...

Access to healthy food varies across socioeconomic circumstances such as primary livelihood, and access to shops, land, farms, and cities. We compared household food and nutrition security across households with food-producing and non-food-producing livelihoods, access to farms and non-farm...

How costly are droughts to adults' nutrition in Africa? Do people adapt to recurring droughts? We measure severe droughts using detailed satellite-based index of greening observed bi-monthly on a relatively high-resolution 0.083 degree grid between 1982 and 2015, that captures persistent and...

Over the past several years, North Korea has adopted legal changes that are increasing the centrality of the Workers Party of Korea and the state in agricultural production, distribution, and consumption. This development changes the basic nature of food insecurity in North Korea from one in...

Using recently discovered archival data, this article studies the changes in the Soviet population and the urbanization patterns after the 1933 famine. It documents that, although most of the direct victims lived in the rural areas, the famine is associated with a persistent negative change in...