Assessing the impact of local procurement in Malawi's Home-Grown School Feeding Programme – An experimental impact evaluation on farmers and farmer organizations’ production practices and income.

Last registered on February 06, 2024
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Assessing the impact of local procurement in Malawi's Home-Grown School Feeding Programme – An experimental impact evaluation on farmers and farmer organizations’ production practices and income.
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0012932
Initial registration date
February 02, 2024

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
February 06, 2024, 5:20 PM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country
Malawi
Region
Kasungu

Primary Investigator

Name
Simone Lombardini
Affiliation
World Food Programme
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Jonas Heirman
PI Affiliation
World Food Programme
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PI Name
Minh Phuong LA
PI Affiliation
World Food Programme
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PI Name
Benedetta Lerva
PI Affiliation
World Bank
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PI Name
Astrid Zwager
PI Affiliation
World Bank
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PI Name
Roshni Khincha
PI Affiliation
World Bank
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PI Name
Florence Kondylis
PI Affiliation
World Bank
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PI Name
Cox Bogaards
PI Affiliation
World Bank
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Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2023-12-15
End date
2026-06-01
Keywords
Agriculture
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
This impact evaluation will assess the impact of the Home-Grown School Feeding (HGSF) Programme on the local economy (i.e. farmers and farmer organisations) in Kasungu district in Malawi. The programme is funded by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) and implemented by the Government of Malawi in partnership with the World Food Programme.

The WFP Malawi CO currently covers 523 schools in 8 districts. In total 676,000 children in 523 schools have received school feeding in 2023. In Kasungu district, 132 schools are receiving school meals in 2023, for a total of 94,490 children.

Schools involved in the Home-Grown School Feeding Programme procure food from local smallholder farmers’ associations and cooperatives within a radius of 20 km from the school. The procurement process is conducted every three months at the school level. Farmer Organisations (FOs), including farmer associations and cooperatives, are invited to participate in the tender process, and the FO with the best bidding offer is awarded a contract to supply to the school for the next three months.

To assess the impacts of the HGSF programme on farmer organisations (FOs) and their members, the evaluation will rely on a randomised encouragement design intended to increase the likelihood for farmer organisations to access the market opportunities created by the HGSF programme. Eligible FOs have been identified to take part in the school tendering process in the Kasungu district. The evaluation will randomly encourage half of them to participate in the school tendering process by providing a set of additional activities expected to increase the likelihood for the FO to succeed in the bid. The remaining FOs will still be eligible to submit bids to schools. The experimental variation in the additional activities will be used to assess the impact on cooperatives and farmers.

The evaluation will conduct three school surveys in the schools receiving the HGSF programme, three farmer organisation (FO) surveys among all the eligible cooperatives involved in the encouragement design component, and two farmer surveys with farmers from eligible FOs.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Bogaards, Cox et al. 2024. "Assessing the impact of local procurement in Malawi's Home-Grown School Feeding Programme – An experimental impact evaluation on farmers and farmer organizations’ production practices and income.." AEA RCT Registry. February 06. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.12932-1.0
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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Schools involved in the Home-Grown School Feeding Programme procure food from local smallholder farmers’ associations and cooperatives within a radius of 20 km from the school. The procurement process is conducted every three months at the school level. Farmer Organisations (FOs), including farmer associations and cooperatives, are invited to participate in the tender process, and the FO with the best bidding offer is awarded a contract to supply to the school for the next three months.

To assess the impacts of the HGSF programme on farmer organisations (FOs) and their members, the evaluation will rely on a randomised encouragement design intended to increase the likelihood for farmer organisations to access the market opportunities created by the HGSF programme. Eligible FOs have been identified as eligible to take part in the school tendering process in the Kasungu district. The evaluation will randomly encourage half of them to participate in the school tendering process by providing a set of additional activities expected to increase the likelihood for the FO to succeed in the bid. The remaining FOs will still be eligible to submit bids to schools. The experimental variation in the additional activities will be used to assess the impact on cooperatives and farmers.
Intervention Start Date
2024-01-19
Intervention End Date
2025-06-15

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
School's number of bids received from FOs, crop and financial value of successful bids.
FO's number of bids submitted, share of successful bids, crop sales, income and investments.
Farmers' agricultural production, sales and revenues, and agricultural practices.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
To assess the impacts of the HGSF programme on farmer organisations (FOs) and their members, the evaluation will rely on a randomised encouragement design intended to increase the likelihood for farmer organisations to access the market opportunities created by the HGSF programme.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization conducted with stata.
Randomization Unit
Farmer organisation level
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
176 schools and 274 farmer organisations
Sample size: planned number of observations
1,644 farmers
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
822 farmers in 137 FOs
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
IRB Approval Date
IRB Approval Number
Analysis Plan