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Abstract This study evaluates the impacts of decentralized school meal procurement from agricultural cooperatives on children and the local economy in Burundi using a two-dimensional impact evaluation. The research examines how this procurement model affects the local economy—including cooperatives and farmers—alongside children's nutrition, health, and education outcomes. The intervention replaces the centralized delivery of school meal crops by the World Food Programme (WFP) with a system where schools procure these crops using Commodity Vouchers (CVs). Impacts on schools and children are assessed through a randomized controlled trial (RCT) involving 243 schools across 200 school clusters, randomly assigned to either the decentralized procurement model or the status quo. Simultaneously, impacts on the local economy are evaluated by randomizing contract awards during competitive tendering at the district level. Eligible cooperatives compete for contracts to supply up to three key crops: maize, rice, and beans. The study leverages extensive survey and secondary data, including digitized meal and attendance records from schools, anthropometric and cognitive assessments of children, seasonal production and revenue data from cooperatives and farmer households, and commodity price data from local market vendors. This research builds on a pilot evaluation conducted in 2022–23 (AEARCTR-0011995). 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.
Last Published December 23, 2024 01:30 PM January 30, 2025 02:16 PM
Experimental Design (Public) The experiment employs a two-dimensional randomization design: 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 competitive tendering process open to 29 eligible cooperatives * Random allocation of qualified bids to win up to three school feeding contracts * Separate randomization for three staple crops: beans, maize, and rice stratified by province * Treatment: Cooperative bids that were randomly awarded a contract for supplying crops directly to treatment schools * Control arm: Cooperatives that did not win a school feeding contract * Design maintains experimental validity under supply-demand matching and geographical constraints 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
Planned Number of Clusters 243 schools 34 cooperative bids 243 schools 91 cooperative bids
Pi as first author No Yes
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