The empirical literature has failed to reach consensus on the impact of aid on development outcomes based on aggregate crosscountry analysis. This study follows the current trend in the literature on the effectiveness of aid to examine the impact of local-level aid on health outcomes. We combine data on World Bank's geo-located aid projects with three rounds of Demographic Health Surveys from Côte d'Ivoire and use difference-indifference estimation techniques to explore the effects of aid on infant mortality. We find that proximity to development aid projects is associated with reduced infant mortality. The results hold whether we consider proximity to any aid project or specifically to water and sanitation projects. They are also robust to inclusion of mother fixed-effects in the model. The evidence suggests that access to prenatal and postnatal health care are possible mechanisms through which aid may affect infant mortality.

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This paper analyses the impact of the 2002–2011 period of instability in Côte d'Ivoire on child health. It uses two rounds of DHS surveys (1998–1999 and 2011–2012) and geo‐referenced data on conflict event locations, which gives more precise estimates of the effects of conflict on child welfare. Regressions using both spatial and temporal variations of conflict events across birth cohorts show a negative association between proximity to conflict events and child height‐for‐age z‐score. The study also suggests that maternal stress and disruptions of healthcare services are possible channels through which conflict affects child wellbeing.

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