Peterman, Amber

Heckert, Jessica

Hidrobo, Melissa

Dione, Malick

Le Port, Agnès

Seye, Moustapha

Edutainment shows promise in changing behavior at scale, yet little is known about how to maximize impacts. We undertake an experimental evaluation of a popular television series, C’est la vie!, delivered through film clubs in rural Senegal, on violence against women and girls, and sexual and reproductive health knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. We find C’est la vie! improved knowledge three months after film clubs ended, as well as violence-related attitudes nine months later, however, find no impacts on behaviors. We investigate design components intended to strengthen impacts, generally finding no additional impacts from post-screening discussions, engaging men, and podcasts.

C’est la vie!: Mixed impacts of an edutainment television series in West Africa

Alderman, Harold

Gilligan, Daniel

Leight, Jessica

Tambet, Heleene

Ethiopia has made major strides in improving nutrition in the past two decades; the prevalence of stunting decreased considerably from 58% in 2000 to 38% in 2016 and further to 37% in 2018.1 While there is no consensus on the underlying causes of this improvement—although substantial increases in income and education surely contributed—there is consensus that more must be done to maintain the momentum. In particular, a number of infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices can be improved. While breastfeeding initiation is nearly universal, many children are not exclusively breastfed until they are 6 months old, which is the recommended practice. Similarly, few children age 6–23 months meet the minimum acceptable dietary standards. This brief presents evidence on the impact of the SPIR project on key IYCF practices at the time of the midline survey.

The effects of SPIR Interventions on nutrition and childcare: Evidence from the SPIR midline survey

Bernard, Tanguy

Hoel, Jessica B.

Ashour, Maha

We examine productive inefficiencies in dairy farming in pastoralist house-holds in Northern Senegal, and using laboratory games, measure the relation-ship between spousal cooperation and productive inefficiency directly. In house-holds that behave less cooperatively in the games, cows owned by men produce10.6% more milk per day than cows owned by women, a gap that remainslarge and statistically significant after controlling for household, owner, andcow characteristics. Our results suggest that frictions between spouses mayindeed explain gender gaps in productivity, and support the use of lab-basedmeasures of household cooperation to complement survey data in explainingcollective behaviors.

Productive inefficiency in dairy farming and cooperation between spouses: Evidence from Senegal

Doss, Cheryl

Kieran, Caitlin

We study decision-making in dairy farming households in Senegal and investigate respondents’ perceptions of why a particular person made the decision. Using vignettes, we ask respondents how similar they are to five types of households. We analyze how the identity of the decision-maker and the rationale for decision-making are related to milk production, hemoglobin levels among children, and satisfaction with decisions. We find that while male dictators achieve better outcomes than most decision-making structures, households in which husbands (wives) decide because they are most informed produce more milk than households in which husbands (wives) decide because they are dictators.

Ask me why: Using vignettes to understand patterns of intrahousehold decision making in rural Senegal

Roy, Shalini

Huybregts, Lieven

Karachiwalla, Naureen

Despite falling rates of poverty and child undernutrition in Africa over the last two decades, the absolute number of people living in poverty and the absolute number of undernourished children continue to rise due to population growth (Beegle et al., 2018; Black et al., 2013). Global evidence suggests that cash transfer programs can reduce poverty and food insecurity and can build resilience for the poor. When cash transfer programs are com-bined with nutrition interventions, they also have the potential to accelerate improvements in child nutrition, especially when targeted to the critical window of opportunity for nutrition, the first one thousand days of a child’s life (Ruel et al., 2013). In West Africa, many cash transfer programs are combined with accompanying measures such as promotion sessions that aim to improve knowledge and increase adoption of recommended behaviors—including those related to child nutrition (Beegle et al., 2018, see Box 1). However, the extent to which such multi-component programs lead to changes in behavior and improve-ments in outcomes related to children’s nutrition and health is still not well-understood.

Multi-component cash transfer programs: Evidence from Mali’s social safety net program (Jigisémèjiri)

Hidrobo, Melissa

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