Freedom from Hunger

Abstract The characteristics of household resilience, an emerging development paradigm, remain uncertain. This paper's purpose was to identify the characteristics of self‐perceived resilient households in rural Burkina Faso. Among 46 participants, self‐perceived resilience status was established through ‘resilience diaries’. Diary results were compared with a series of socio‐economic, community and household variables of interest. Major factors associated with household resilience included poverty status, savings accumulation and the use of livestock as an income‐generating activity. These findings provide insights into factors likely to strengthen household resilience and provide direction for practitioners interested in building and measuring changes in household resilience. Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Background: The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme, launched in 1975 by the Government of India, provides various health services to children and their mothers at ICDS centres. Objectives: The purpose of this study is to understand 1) the extent to which women living in Rajasthan, India utilize services provided by ICDS centres and 2) the factors that are associated with their use. Methods: Freedom from Hunger and Freedom from Hunger India Trust, in collaboration with two local partners in Rajasthan, India, conducted a baseline assessment with 403 pregnant women and women with young children belonging to self-help groups to compare use of ICDS centres with key demographic variables and measures of poverty, food security and nutrition, curative care related to diarrhea, coping strategies, and household decision-making. Results: The results revealed that households that accessed ICDS services were more likely to report receiving nutrition information from ICDS centres, to purchase ORS in the last year, and to give oral rehydration solution (ORS) to children who had diarrhea. Women who decide how much food to serve each family member or spend money without discussing it first with someone else were more likely to receive benefits from ICDS centres. Those who spoke with their spouse about household nutrition needs were less likely to report accessing ICDS services. Conclusion: Interventions aimed at increasing utilization of ICDS centres in this region may find it beneficial to increase female participation in health care decisions, likely through spousal communication and gender relations.

We evaluate whether health education integrated into microcredit lending groups reduces health risks by improving health knowledge and self-reported behaviors among urban and rural borrowers in eastern Benin. In 2007, we randomly assigned 138 villages in the Plateau region of Benin to one of four variations of a group liability credit product, varying lending groups' gender composition and/or inclusion of health education using a 2 × 2 design. Women in villages receiving health education, regardless of gender composition of the groups, showed improved knowledge of malaria and of human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS), but not of childhood illness danger signs. No significant changes in health behavior were observed except an increase in HIV/AIDS prevention behavior, a result predominantly driven by an increase in respondents' self-reported ability to procure a condom, likely an indicator of increased perceived access rather than improved preventative behavior. Women in villages assigned to mixed-gender groups had significantly lower levels of social capital, compared with villages assigned to female-only groups. This suggests there may be an important trade-off to consider for interventions seeking improved health outcomes and social capital through provision of services to mixed-gender groups. Although bundling health education with microcredit can expand health education coverage and lower service-delivery costs, the approach may not be sufficient to improve health behaviors.

At the forefront of global health priorities are the achievement of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the strengthening of health systems. The MDGs focus the worldwide development agenda on reducing extreme poverty as well as improving health, education and human rights by 2015. At the same time, the World Health Organization is emphasizing the need to build health-system capacity, a global challenge that is most elusive in rural and resource-poor environments. Meeting global health needs calls for more intersectoral approaches. One that holds real promise, though largely underutilized, is the linking of microfinance with appropriate health-related services. Numerous impact evaluation studies support the effectiveness of microfinance and its impact on poverty. Research funded by The World Bank examined the impact of three microfinance institutions in Bangladesh over a seven-year period and found dramatic decreases in overall poverty, with the highest impact on those families in extreme poverty.1 However, microfinance is not a silver bullet; legitimate issues exist, such as the ability to address the needs of extremely poor people, the level of debt burden for individuals, and the uneven performance of microfinance institutions worldwide.

F.A.O.'s Indicative World Plan for Agricultural Development is an effort to analyse the major problems which will confront agriculture in the developing countries in the 1970s and early 1980s, and to suggest the most important ways in which national and international action can solve them.