Investing in nutrition through early childhood development in Malawi: Assessing costs and benefits

BY AULO GELLI, AMY MARGOLIES, CHRISTOPHER KEMP, CAROL LEVIN AND NATASHA LEDLIE

A world free from malnutrition requires coordinated efforts across sectors, and the research suggests there is good reason to be enthusiastic about such interventions. However, assessments of their costs and cost-effectiveness are harder to come by.

One such study offers a promising way forward. Researchers at IFPRI and the University of Washington examined an integrated nutrition and agriculture intervention designed to improve the nutrition of meals offered through Malawi’s community-based childcare centers (CBCCs)—finding its estimated benefits (assessed as part of a related impact analysis) outweighed the intervention costs.

The economic evaluations used the framework and methods developed as part of the Strengthening Economic Evaluation for Multisectoral Nutrition Strategies (SEEMS-Nutrition) initiative. SEEMS-Nutrition aims to improve the comparability and use of economic evaluation findings across different multisectoral nutrition interventions through a standardized method, set of tools, and analysis.