Explanation:
School feeding interventions are implemented in nearly
every country in the world, with the potential to support
the education, health and nutrition of school children
from low-income households [23]. To date, there is little
evidence on the potential for agriculture and community
development. This paper described the design and baseline results for a randomised evaluation of school meals
interventions linked to smallholder agriculture. As far as
we are aware, it is the first to examine explicitly from a
holistic perspective the simultaneous impact of a national school meals programme on micronutrient status,
alongside outcomes in nutrition, education and agriculture domains. The evaluation builds on a trial design
taking place in Mali that includes an extensive analysis
of the programme theory for the intervention. As the
intervention is complex, the scope of this evaluation is
also very broad and includes measurement of a range of
outcome indicators across multiple traditional disciplines.
Designing and implementing such an evaluation is in
itself a complex undertaking, involving a multi-disciplinary
research team working in close collaboration with
programme- and policy-level stakeholders. The survey
also required a range of different expertise in the enumeration teams in order to collect data including anthropometry, haemoglobin levels, and educational tests, alongside
expenditure, income and other socio-economic-related
modules. The use of the survey tools required to capture
the data was inevitably fairly time-intensive. Extensive
analysis of the rich baseline data is currently underway.
