Integrating health and agriculture services for improved household food security and nutritional status of mothers and children 4 -6 years of age in Ethiopia (CAB 2020 - De Henauw)

Ethiopia still has a high prevalence of undernutrition. The current situation of food insecurity and malnutrition in Ethiopia has pressurized the government in pursuing a number of nutritional-sensitive interventions to increase diversified food production and consumption like the Sustainable Undernutrition Reduction Program (SURE). This study aims to investigate whether joint nutrition specific and sensitive interventions can lead to improved household food security, dietary diversification and improved nutritional status in Ethiopian mothers and their young children. Additional outcomes will include women empowerment in agriculture, choices in uptake of health services and child rearing decisions and maternal knowledge, attitude and practice regarding child care. The study will be a community based longitudinal design and  will use multistage cluster sampling at the kebele and household levels in Amhara, Oromia, SNNPR and Tigray regions. For the purpose of this PhD, the evaluation will be completed in more than 1,500 households in 36 districts.

Qualitative methods will be used to examine the quality of implementation mechanisms of change, and contextual data to help interpret findings of the impact evaluation.