Is women's empowerment a pathway to improving child nutrition outcomes in a nutrition-sensitive agriculture program?: Evidence from a randomized controlled trial in Burkina Faso

Abstract

Nutrition-sensitive programs in low- and middle-income countries often aim to improve child nutrition outcomes in part by empowering women. Although previous studies have found cross-sectional associations linking women's empowerment and child nutritional status, there is limited empirical evidence supporting the hypothesis that empowering women as part of an intervention will, in turn, improve child nutritional outcomes. We tested this hypothesis using two waves of data from a cluster-randomized controlled trial of a nutrition-sensitive agricultural program in Burkina Faso. With structural equation models, we examined whether four domains of women's empowerment—purchasing decisions, healthcare decisions, family planning decisions, and spousal communication—mediated the program's impact on reducing wasting and increasing hemoglobin among children who were three to 12 months old at the start of the two-year program. We found that improvements in women's empowerment in the domains of spousal communication, purchasing decisions, healthcare decisions, and family planning decisions contributed to the program's impact on reducing wasting with the largest share being attributable to spousal communication. Improvements in women's empowerment did not contribute to the increase in hemoglobin. These findings provide the first evidence from a randomized controlled trial that women's empowerment is a pathway by which a nutrition-sensitive program can improve child wasting. Programs that aim to improve child nutritional status should incorporate interventions designed to empower women.

Development of the project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI)

“…Valid and comprehensive measures of gender equality and women’s empowerment are essential to monitor progress toward achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5. Women’s empowerment and gender equality are important in their own right to women and girls and are linked with other SDGs, such as eliminating poverty (SDG 1), achieving zero hunger and malnutrition (SDG 2), and good health and well-being for women and children (SDG 3) (Cunningham et al, 2015, Heckert et al, 2019, Malapit et al, 2015, Ruel et al, 2018, Sraboni et al, 2014).…”

Sustainable Empowerment Initiatives among Rural Women through Microcredit Borrowings in Bangladesh

“…Primarily, the empirical outcomes suggest that utilizing microcredit helps rural women to have more agency over their financial assets, like income, savings, and properties, which are mentioned in the literature as forms of economic empowerment. This result is significant since the literature shows that the foundation of women empowerment is always formed by economic empowerment through other measures [63][64][65]. Additionally, being a microcredit borrower significantly contributes to enhancing women's independence and awareness of legal issues, even after controlling for knowledge-related variables, such as education levels.…”

Understanding rural household behavior: Beyond Boserup and Becker

“…Although the project had no impact on the area of land cultivated by either men or women, qualitative work indicates that gender norms became more favorable toward women's landownership in treatment as compared with control areas. A follow‐up study (Heckert, Olney, & Ruel, ) focusing on women's empowerment found that improvements in women's empowerment in the domains of spousal communication, purchasing decisions, healthcare decisions, and family planning decisions contributed to the program's impact on reducing wasting, with the largest share being attributable to spousal communication. Improvements in women's empowerment did not contribute to the increase in hemoglobin.…”