Department of Business Management, Myanmar Imperial University, Yangon, Myanmar.
Department of Management, School of Business, University of Cape Coast, Ghana.
This study examines the effects of the Strengthening Partnership, Results, and Innovations in Nutrition Globally (SPRING) project on malnutrition (stunting, acute malnutrition, and underweight) among children under five years of age. We employed the Difference-In-Difference (DID) estimation approach and the Ghana Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey data (MICS) to analyze the project’s impact. Our analysis showed a strong positive association between the project’s effect on the probability of stunting and underweight by 11% (p=0.01) and 9% (p=0.003), respectively, in the treated regions compared with the untreated regions. However, we found no evidence of the project’s effect on acute malnutrition. We also provide suggestive evidence that the project may have influenced child nutrition status through antenatal care attendance. This study demonstrated that tackling child nutrition deficiencies through an integrated holistic approach, such as early Antenatal Care (ANC) attendance, increased access to high-quality foods, improving women’s nutrition knowledge, and improving agricultural practices, can significantly reduce childhood stunting and underweight.
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