1) The document describes a program in Burkina Faso that aims to improve nutrition by increasing home food production and supporting women farmers. 2) It evaluates the program's impacts on assets, income, knowledge and child nutrition, finding some gains but also high malnutrition rates and anemia prevalence remaining. 3) It identifies challenges around women retaining control over program assets, securing land access, and water shortages, and seeks suggestions to address these issues.

1. ENHANCED HOMESTEAD
FOOD PRODUCTION FOR
IMPROVED FOOD SECURITY
AND NUTRITION IN BURKINA
FASO
Helen Keller International (HKI) and
the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

3. E-HFP Program
 Goal: To improve the nutritional status of infants and young children
through a set of production and nutrition interventions targeted to
women with children 3-12 months of age
1. Increased availability of micronutrient-rich foods through household
production in the secondary agriculture season.
2. Income generation through the sale of surplus household production
3. Increased knowledge and adoption of optimal nutritional practices
including consumption of micronutrient-rich foods
 Behavior change promoted through two different social network
channels – “grandmothers” and health committees
 Target population: 30 villages – 120 female village farm leaders (VFL)
plus 1200 female household gardeners

4. Primary Assets
 Physical capital through project inputs and products
 Financial capital through increased revenue from household
gardens
 Social capital through village model farms and behavior
change communication strategy
 Human capital through agriculture and nutrition training and
improved knowledge and adoption of best practices in
agriculture and nutrition and subsequent improved nutritional
status

5. Study Design
 Longitudinal impact evaluation
 Social network census
 Operations research

6. Impact Evaluation
 Randomized design
 30 intervention villages (~1200 households)
 15 “grandmothers” villages
 15 health committee villages
 15 control villages (~800 households)
 Longitudinal
 Baseline Feb-Apr 2010 (target children 3-12 months of age)
 Endline Feb-Apr 2012 (target children 27-36 months of age)
 Household interview
 Male household head and female key respondent including gender
disaggregated modules on asset ownership, agricultural production,
income, household expenditures, knowledge on nutrition, household food
security, dietary diversity, etc.
 Anthropometric measures and hemoglobin status of target children

7. Operations Research
 Sampling
 Random selection of beneficiaries (n=140) and non-beneficiaries (n=70)
 Purposive sample of key informants (village level agriculture (n=60) and
nutrition trainers (n=60) and master trainers in agriculture and nutrition (n=18)
 Cross-sectional
 Feedback to program implementers on what is working well and what could use
some improvements
 Inform the final design of the endline quantitative survey and additional
qualitative research
 Semi-structured interviews with beneficiaries, non-beneficiaries and key
informants
 Included questions related to implementation and uptake of key program
activities including distribution, ownership and use of program inputs and related
products, attendance, understanding and knowledge related to agriculture and
nutrition training sessions, and preliminary outcome measures including dietary
diversity and household food security

8. Project Timeline and Progress
 Progress to date (program):
 Village model farms established, production on-going
 Household gardens established, production on-going
 Household visits for BCC activities, on-going
 Pilot of goat distribution (35 goats to 5 VMFs)
 Progress to date (research):
 Baseline data collection, analysis and report complete
 Social network data collection complete, analysis on-going
 Operations research data collection complete, analysis on-going
 Endline survey to be conducted between February and April
2012

10. Household welfare
 Assets
 Men hold fewer numbers of assets but the value of these assets is
much higher than assets held by women.
 Livestock
 Men hold the majority of livestock both in number of animals, but
also in the value of these animals.
 Expenditure
 Both total and adult equivalent total expenditures are slightly
larger in control villages than in the treatment villages.
 control group villages also had higher expenditures in the meat
and fish category and somewhat higher expenditures in the
cereals and fruits categories.

11. Nutrition knowledge and status
 Sub-optimal health and nutrition-related knowledge and
practices
 Introduction of liquids at 3 months of age
 Introduction of semi-solid foods at 7 months of age
 High levels of malnutrition
 Stunted (HAZ <-2): 25%
 Underweight (WAZ <-2): 33%
 Wasted (WHZ < -2): 26%
 Extremely high prevalence of anemia and severe anemia
 Anemic (Hb <11.0 g/L): 88%
 Severely Anemic (Hb <7.0 g/L):11%

13. Physical capital
 85% of beneficiaries (compared to 4% of non-
beneficiaries) had a home garden and for 91% of
these women this was new since joining the program.
 The vast majority of the women credit the program
with increasing the increasing production of
vegetables and 74% also thought the program had
increased production of chickens.

14. Ownership of family garden
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50% Beneficiary
40% Husband
Joint
30%
20%
10%
0%
Owns garden Owns land for Allowed to use Makes decisions Manages
garden garden on produce revenue
generated

15. Use and decision-making related to
seeds and poultry
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
Beneficiary
40% Husband
30%
20%
10%
0%
Use: seeds Use: chickens Sell: seeds Sell: chickens Keep income: Keep income:
seeds chickens

16. Ownership of goats
80%
70%
60%
50%
40% Beneficiary
Husband
30%
Joint
20%
10%
0%
Who owns Who takes care of Who makes sale Who makes
decisions consumption
decision

17. Financial capital
 Less than half of the beneficiaries (n=56
respondents) reported selling any vegetables
(n=22), chickens (n=24) or eggs (n=2) - but of
those who did the majority reported that their
income related to these activities has increased due
to the HFP program.

18. Social capital
 Village Model Farms
 Some indication from the village farm leaders that they are
building social capital through their leadership roles.
 The majority of the beneficiaries work on village model
farms – most reported positive interactions however there
were some reports of conflicts.
 Husbands supported their wives’ work both at the village
model farm as well as in their home gardens
 Behavior Change Communication
 Conducted a social network census to examine the diffusion
of knowledge through two types of behavior change
communication strategies.

19. Human Capital
 Beneficiaries had more agriculture-related
knowledge than non-beneficiaries
 Beneficiaries had more nutrition-related knowledge
as compared to non-beneficiaries
 Dietary diversity was higher among beneficiary
households, mothers and children < 2 years of age
as compared to non-beneficiaries

20. Next steps
 Program
 Implementation of suggested changes form the operations research and
monitoring activities
 Consider compensation for village level nutrition trainers
 Address the water shortage prom
 Repair boreholes
 Establish small wells
 Distribute more drip irrigation kits
 Research
 Finish analysis and report for the operations research
 Finish analysis of social network census
 Endline survey (Feb-Apr. 2012)
 Design additional qualitative research around some key issues
 Men’s knowledge and support of optimal health and nutrition practices
 Land access and use issues
 Time-related issues
 Maintenance of control of resources by program beneficiaries
 Ability to make decisions related to products such as vegetables, chickens and goats.

21. Implementation questions
 What are some strategies that could be employed to ensure
that women are able to retain management rights over
assets given to them by the project?
 What are some strategies to secure women’s access to land
for home gardens?
 HKI has been successful in securing land rights for the land
donated for the community gardens – however, some were
considered too small, or not fertile.
 What are some other strategies to deal with water
shortages?