Along with the rise of the development effectiveness movement of the last few decades, experimental impact evaluation methods – randomised controlled trials and quasi-experimental techniques – have emerged as a dominant force. While the increased use of these methods has contributed to improved understanding of what works and whether specific projects have been successful, their ‘gold standard’ status threatens to exclude a large body of evidence from the development effectiveness dialogue. In this paper we conduct an evaluation of the impact on child stunting of CARE’s SHOUHARDO project in Bangladesh, the first large-scale project to use the rights-based, livelihoods approach to address malnutrition. In line with calls for a more balanced view of what constitutes rigor and scientific evidence, and for the use of more diversified and holistic methods in impact evaluations, we employ a mixed-methods approach. The results from multiple data sources and methods, including both non-experimental and quasi-experimental, are triangulated to arrive at the conclusions.

We find that the project had an extraordinarily large impact on stunting among children 6–24 months old – on the order of a 4.5 percentage point reduction per year. We demonstrate that one reason the project reduced stunting by so much was because, consistent with the rights-based, livelihoods approach, it relied on both direct nutrition interventions and those that addressed underlying structural causes including poor sanitation, poverty, and deeply-entrenched inequalities in power between women and men. These findings have important policy implications given the slow progress in reducing malnutrition globally and that the widely-supported Scaling Up Nutrition initiative aimed at stepping up efforts to do so is in urgent need of guidance on how to integrate structural cause interventions with the direct nutrition interventions that are the initiative’s main focus. The evaluation also adds to the evidence that targeting the poor, rather than employing universal coverage, can help to accelerate reductions in child malnutrition. The paper concludes that, given the valuable policy lessons generated, the experience of the SHOUHARDO project merits solid standing in the knowledge bank of development effectiveness. More broadly, it illustrates how rigorous and informative evaluation of complex, multi-intervention projects can be undertaken even in the absence of the randomisation, nonproject control groups and/or panel data required by the experimental methods.

Three years after the 2007/2008 food price crisis, the cost of food items on both international and national markets are on the rise again.

Poor people, still suffering from the impact of the previous crisis, are being hit hardest. As well as the challenge of rising prices, agricultural commodity indices on both international and national markets have been increasingly volatile over the short-term – negatively impacting on both producers and consumers.

Assessments show that prices on international markets are likely to remain high for the foreseeable future.

This paper documents and systematises Peru’s recent experience in tackling malnutrition.

Through an intensive review of quantitative and qualitative evidence, it argues that success is not explained by the presence of favourable socioeconomic changes in Peru, and it explores the political determinants of success in three dimensions.

Horizontally, it looks at government efforts to form policy coalitions across representatives of different government and non-government agencies; it looks at the vertical integration of agencies and programmes between national, regional and municipal governments, and it analyses the allocation of  government resources used to fund the government’s nutrition effort.

Millions are living on the edge of emergency.

The number of people living on the edge of emergency has rocketed to 220 million.

The world's poorest are paying a high price for the international aid system's failure to address factors keeping them in chronic poverty.

With food price rises adding to the problem many people just don’t have enough to eat.

Most of them live on the edge because we keep them there. Money raised to respond to emergencies often leaves them worse off than they were before.

CARE is demanding that we put a stop to this by calling for a dramatic overhaul of the system which is keeping them trapped.

Our report calls on the international community to give higher priority to recovery and prevention programmes like seed distribution and improved veterinary services so that families can pull themselves back from the edge and be in a stronger position to fight off the next emergency themselves.

A Publication of the Oakland Institute & the UK Hunger Alliance.

High food prices in 2007-2008 threatened the livelihoods and food security of billions of people worldwide for whom getting enough food to eat was already a daily struggle. All over the world, individuals, civil society groups, governments and international organizations took action to cope with the crisis triggered by skyrocketing food prices.

This report investigates whether these responses were appropriate and effective and whether high food prices have brought about any changes in food and agriculture policies. Whereas price volatility remains a threat for the world’s poor, the intention of this report is to draw key lessons from these responses in order to inform future policies and programmes.

May 21, 2007 – Brussels, CARE held a second roundtable meeting in cooperation with WFP and UNAIDS to discuss the links between food insecurity and HIV and AIDS.

Practitioners from Rwanda, Ethiopia and Zambia shared experiences in HIV and food security programming and provided tools for policy makers and programmers in Europe.

In 2007, we are one year into the “scale up” to universal access to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, care, and support, and as we approach the half way point to the Millennium Development Goals, it is an appropriate time to take stock of a comprehensive approach.

This second roundtable builds on last year’s discussion, which brought together high-level representation from the European Commission, relevant UN agencies, the European Parliament and the NGO community to share ideas about how to create greater linkages in this area and optimise the impact of existing interventions.

This briefing paper, which responds to Article 28 of UNGASS 2006, highlights the importance of adequate food and nutrition in mitigating against the impacts of HIV and AIDS.

Over the last 30 years agricultural production has continued to form the basis of livelihood strategies in rural Zambia.

There are wide variations, and combinations depending on ecological zone, land suitability, cropping pattern, year round water availability, and potential for livestock/poultry production.

All households engage in a range of non-agricultural natural resource use, for example: fishing, forestry and wildlife utilisation.

In addition households are involved in various alternative informal income generating activities. However, these tend to be short term, seasonal and with low rewards, e.g. petty trading, crafts, and casual labour.

Over the past thirty years, households in Malawi have been exposed to a large number of shocks that have led to an ongoing decline of rural livelihoods.

More than 60% of the population is experiencing chronic poverty every year and it has some of the worst child malnutrition and mortality rates in Africa.

The highest concentration of poverty is in the southern region of the country where 68.1% of households are poor, compared to the central region with 62.8% and the north with 62.5%.

The current level of poverty is characterized by deep inequality.

The richest 20% of the population in Malawi consumes nearly half of all goods and services, whereas the poorest 20% consume only 6.3%.

CARE adopted the Household Livelihood Security (HLS) framework in 1994.

HLS is an integrated framework that promotes participatory problem analysis and program design, geographically focused programming strategies, coherent and often cross-sector monitoring and evaluation systems, and, importantly, reflective practice and continued learning.