Impacts of localization of school meals procurement: Experimental evidence from a home grown school feeding program in Burundi

Last registered on January 30, 2025

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Impacts of localization of school meals procurement: Experimental evidence from a home grown school feeding program in Burundi
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0014620
Initial registration date
December 20, 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
December 23, 2024, 1:30 PM EST

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

Last updated
January 30, 2025, 2:16 PM EST

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Affiliation
WORLD BANK

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
World Bank
PI Affiliation
World Bank
PI Affiliation
World Food Programme
PI Affiliation
World Bank
PI Affiliation
World Food Programme

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2023-09-01
End date
2026-12-31
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial is based on or builds upon one or more prior RCTs.
Abstract
Limited access to output markets has been identified as one of the reasons why the agricultural productivity of smallholder farmers in low-income countries lags behind. This study evaluates the impacts of experimentally generating a large output market for selected agricultural cooperatives through the school meal program in Burundi, using two parallel randomized controlled trials. In one experiment, schools are randomized into different meal procurement modalities: the status quo (i.e., centralized procurement by the World Food Programme) or decentralized procurement from local cooperatives led by each provincial government of Burundi. Additionally, tendering events are organized to solicit offers from local cooperatives, and eligible bids are randomized to determine which cooperatives will supply the schools under decentralized procurement. The research examines how the decentralized procurement model affects the local economy—mainly cooperatives and farmers—alongside children's nutrition, health, and education outcomes.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
JEONG, DAHYEON et al. 2025. "Impacts of localization of school meals procurement: Experimental evidence from a home grown school feeding program in Burundi." AEA RCT Registry. January 30. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.14620-1.1
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2024-02-01
Intervention End Date
2026-06-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Primary outcomes are measured across five domains:
1. Schools
* School feeding days (and share of meal days) per month
* School meal attendance and enrolment
* Nutritional composition: Global Diet Quality Score (GDQS)-Meal index

2. Children
* Child absences
* Nutrition: food consumption, dietary diversity and food security
* Standardized test scores (EGRA, EGMA, Stroop, Ravens CPM, Digit Span)
* Anthropometrics: Measures of height and weight constructed standardizing for age, referenced with growth charts.

3. Farmer households
* Seasonal production and sales per crop (price and quantity)
* Food consumption expenditure

4. Cooperatives
* Seasonal aggregate production and revenue per buyer
* Share of revenue from school feeding
* Distribution of surplus at member level

5. Markets
* Commodity prices of school feeding crops and household staples
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
1. School meal diversity will be constructed using the Global Diet Quality Meal Score (GDQS-Meal) as per Intake.org guidelines.
2. Child anthropometrics will be referenced against WHO growth charts to determine height-for-age, weight-for-age, and BMI-for-age measures.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The experiment employs two parallel randomization designs:

1. School-Level Assignment
* Randomization unit: Clustered randomization at the school compound level stratified by province. A compound is a cluster of schools, often sharing a kitchen.
* Sampling frame: 243 schools (200 school compounds) across 4 provinces in Burundi
* Treatment arm: Decentralized procurement through Commodity Vouchers (CV)
* Control arm: Centralized procurement through WFP

2. Cooperative-Level Assignment
* Random assignment of school feeding contracts following a tendering process open to 31 eligible cooperatives
* Random allocation of qualified bids for each commodity to win up to three commodities
* Treatment: Cooperatives or bids that were randomly awarded contracts to supply crops directly to treatment schools
* Control arm: Cooperatives or bids that did not win a school feeding contract
* Design maintains experimental validity under supply-demand matching and geographical constraints
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
The sampling and randomization were conducted using Stata 18.
Randomization Unit
Schools are randomized at the school compound level.
Cooperative randomization is assigned stratified by crop.
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
243 schools
91 cooperative bids
Sample size: planned number of observations
243 schools 2430 children 60 cooperatives 300 farmers 50 agricultural markets
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
120 control schools (98 compounds)
123 treatment schools (102 compounds)
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
HML IRB
IRB Approval Date
2024-01-12
IRB Approval Number
2475