Orienting Agriculture Toward Improved Nutrition and Women’s Empowerment (ANGeL)

Regional Symposium on integrating Gender and Nutrition in Ag Extension

Dhaka | 08 March 2017

Background Evidence

Overwhelming dominance of rice in diet: Share of rice in total nutrient intakes of Bangladeshis

Food energy (calorie)

Protein Zinc Iron0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

71

5762

44

78

6770

52

63

4652

36

All Poorest 20% Richest 20%

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al n

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take

Source: IFPRI Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey (BIHS) 2012

4

Regional differences in percentage of women empowered in agriculture: IFPRI’s WEAI study

BARISAL RAJSHAHI DHAKA RANGPUR KHULNA CHITTAGONG SYLHET BANGLADESH0

10

20

30

40

3028 27

20 20

12 11

23

Perc

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f w

omen

Source: Esha Sraboni, Agnes Quisumbing, and Akhter Ahmed, IFPRI, April 2013

Motivation Using IFPRI’s 2011-12 Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey

(BIHS) data and econometric modelling exercise (instrumental variable regressions), IFPRI researchers found that: Agricultural diversity increases household and child

dietary diversity, and hence, diet quality, after controlling for income effect

Women’s empowerment (measured by the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index – WEAI) improves household, child, and maternal dietary diversity

Women’s empowerment increases agricultural diversity IFPRI research in Bangladesh also shows that nutrition

behavior change communication (BCC) training imparted to women and men in rural households leads to significant improvements in child nutrition (TMRI, Alive & Thrive).

ANGeL project development and launch

Motivated by research-based evidence from IFPRI studies in Bangladesh, IFPRI developed a concept note to strengthen the agriculture-nutrition-gender nexus in Bangladesh, which was presented to the Ministry of Agriculture in June 2014.

An inter-ministerial committee of the Government of Bangladesh approved a pilot project jointly funded by the Government of Bangladesh and USAID.

“Orienting Agriculture Toward Improved Nutrition and Women’s Empowerment,” also referred to as Agriculture, Nutrition, and Gender Linkages (or ANGeL), was officially launched by the honourable Minister of Agriculture on October 29, 2015.

ANGeL is being implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture, and with technical assistance from IFPRI and Helen Keller International.

ANGeL: Overall objective and policy relevance

Overall objective: Identify actions and investments in agriculture that would lead

to agricultural development for improved nutrition Make recommendations on how to strengthen pathways to

women’s empowerment—particularly within agriculture The project addresses two important aspects of the National Agricultural Policy 2013: 1. Encouraging crop diversification and crop production with

greater nutrition value for meeting the nutrition demand of the population

2. Empowering women, encouraging their participation in production and marketing for income generation, and ensuring their nutritional status for improving food and nutrition security

ANGeL implementing partners Agricultural Policy Support (APSU) of the Ministry of

Agriculture and Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) implement the

pilot project, with technical assistance from IFPRI Other MOA partners include Bangladesh Agricultural Research

Institute (BARI), Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI), Bangladesh Institute of Research and Training on Applied Nutrition (BIRTAN), Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation (BADC)

HKI

Why agricultural extension is engaged?

Agricultural extension network of the government already in place nationwide with ‘topping-up’ their current agricultural production portfolio with nutrition activities and messages.

Agriculture extension workers are a promising vehicle to deliver nutrition knowledge and practices They maintain contact and have established relationships with

the people and the communities where they are based. With this, they are aware of the local social norms, cultures, and belief systems that help nutrition messaging.

ANGeL Project Design

ANGeL project design

The pilot project implements and evaluates the impact of three alternative interventions and their 5 combinations. The interventions are: Agriculture Production: Facilitating the production of the

high-value food commodities rich in essential nutrients. The focus is on diversifying agricultural production (fruits and vegetables, pulses, oilseeds, poultry, dairy, fish, livestock)

Nutrition BCC: Imparting high-quality behavior change communication (BCC) to farmers to improve nutrition

Gender Sensitization: Undertaking activities that lead to the improvement in the status/empowerment of women

Treatment arms and controlANGeL has 5 treatment arms and a control arm: T1: Nutrition BCC (training delivered to women and men by

agricultural extension agents from the DAE, most likely all men) T2: Nutrition BCC-2 (training delivered by local community women

hired by the project) T3: Agricultural Production (training delivered to men and women) T4: Ag. Production (training delivered to men and women) + BCC T5: Ag. Production to (training delivered to men and women) +

BCC + gender sensitization to women and men C: Control

Evaluation method Randomized controlled trial (RCT) method to evaluate the impact of

ANGeL Sample agricultural blocks are randomly assigned to treatment and

control groups The impact evaluation involves two rounds of comprehensive

household surveys The first survey is designed as a baseline, conducted in Completed

in January 2016, just before the start of project activities The second follow-up survey will be conducted 24 months later,

shortly after the second year of project activities are completed in December 2017

The longitudinal dataset that will emerge from the two rounds of surveys will enable researchers to construct difference-in-differences (or double difference) impact estimates—meaning, they will determine the difference between the change in the treatment group and the change in the control group.

ANGEL IN NUMBERS• 3125 farm families: Families with children under age two were

selected. At the end of the project, researchers will assess the impacts on child nutrition outcomes such as stunting, as well as maternal, child, and family dietary diversity for these families.

• 100 agriculture extension agents: By drawing upon the government’s nationwide agricultural extension workforce, ANGeL’s design can be scaled up nationally and sustained after the conclusion of the project.

• 16 upazilas under 16 districts across rural Bangladesh: To make sure ANGeL’s findings are nationally representative, ANGeL covers a wide variety of settings, and were purposively selected for good market connectivity and agro-ecological suitability.

ANGeL upazilas

Outcome indicators

Using the RCT with data from baseline and end line surveys, researchers will estimate impacts of each of the 6 modalities on:

Incomes of farmers (by marginal, small, medium, and large farm size groups) Household, child, and maternal dietary diversity (measured by food

consumption score and dietary diversity score) Child nutritional status in terms of stunting, wasting, and underweight (from

anthropometric measurements of height and weight of children under 5 years of age)

Nutritional status of child bearing-age women (measured by body mass index)

Women’s social status and empowerment (measured by the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture

Index – WEAI)

Progress in implementation Completed baseline survey in January 2016. Beneficiary and control

households selected. 3 training manuals were prepared Orientation workshop of 16 DAE district and upazila officials was held in

Dhaka at APSU. 5 training of trainer sessions were held in April and May 2016, where 100

sub-assistant agriculture officers (SAAOs) of DAE were trained on nutrition BCC and agriculture production.

25 local female community nutrition workers, or “ANGeL Pushti Kormis” (APK), were selected and trained as trainers of farmers on nutrition behavior change communication (BCC).

In July 2016, field-level trainings of 3,125 farmers have started in all 16 districts across Bangladesh.

Refreshers training for T1, T3, T4 and T5 arm in January-February 2017.

Next steps Completion of phase 2 farmers’ training (refresher training) by

November 2017 Midline process evaluation in March 2017. End line survey from December 2017 – January 2018. Final report by September 2018.

Way forward

After two years, the ANGeL experimental research will identify which interventions most effectively increase agricultural diversity, improve nutrition, and promote women’s empowerment.

The Ministry of Agriculture plans to use the research-based evidence to scale up the most effective interventions all over Bangladesh.

ANGeL is the first ministry-led initiative that uses a rigorous impact evaluation, the randomized controlled trial, to develop an evidence base to design and implement a national program.

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UAO Chandina is explaining food poster

UAO, Matiranga, APSU,DAE and IFPRI team are monitoring framer’s training on Agriculture

SAAO, Trishal is delivering the agriculture session

Country representative, IFPRI is observing farmer's training

SAAO, Matiranga is showing good fertilizer SAAO of Bagharpara Upazila is explaining quantity of food for young children.

Farmers are participating at group discussion on different types of food in Golapganj upazila

Farmers are participating at group discussion on different types of food in Golapganj upazila

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APK refresher training

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Gender TOT

Father groups participating in asset mapping

Importance of equality in family to ensure peace

Thank you