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Many sub-Saharan African countries implementing agricultural input subsidies programmes (AISP) concentrate on fertilizers and staple food crops which may have little or no effect on consumption of diverse nutrient dense non-staple foods. The programme in Malawi – the Farm Input Subsidy Programme (FISP) – includes legume seeds, but little research has been undertaken to evaluate the effects of this strategy on household dietary diversity. In this study, we used two waves of integrated household panel survey data of 2013 and 2016 to examine the dietary diversity gains from inclusion of legume seed coupons in the programme. The control function approach for dealing with selection bias into a programme is used in Poisson regression of panel data. The results show that access as well as redemption of legume coupons is positively associated with diversified diets. This is especially through location fixed effects in the southern region of Malawi, higher production diversity, greater land holding sizes and the sale of maize. Further, households that had less need to satisfy hunger through the growing of maize were those likely to redeem legume coupons. The results suggest a more nuanced pathway of impact from coupon access, redemption or type of crop produced to dietary diversity than the pathway that might be expected, and have implications for how best to understand and conceptualise the tensions and synergies between addressing different aspects of malnutrition in all its forms – and suggest the importance of addressing food insecurity constraints that potentially limit the growing of nutrient-rich legume crops as well as wider increases to dietary diversity. The results also point to the importance of the income pathway and food markets in facilitating greater dietary diversity. Further consideration of these issues by policymakers and the wider agri-nutrition community will be important to advance the discussion and research of how best to design AISP and other public policy to address malnutrition in all its forms.

Mobile money is increasingly promoted as a strategy to improve financial outcomes and livelihoods in low-income countries. However, its adoption and use among the poor remains low. We exploited a randomized experiment that exposed members of Village Savings and Loan Associations in Malawi to a financial-literacy and mobile-money training program, which was reinforced by weekly text-message reminders. We analyzed the impact of our intervention using survey data collected in the field as well as administrative data from the main telecommunications operators in the area. We found that treated individuals were more likely to have greater knowledge of mobile-money transactions than non-treated ones. They were also more likely to report receiving and saving money using mobile money and were more likely to report that they kept their savings in a formal financial institution. Interestingly, these effects were concentrated in relatively less economically developed areas. We used administrative data to analyze the effects of our intervention on the volume of mobile-money transactions. While the estimated effect had the expected positive sign, it was not statistically significant. We hypothesized that this result may be related to the fact that individuals also relied on local agents to perform mobile-money transactions; such behavior was not captured in administrative data. This is among the first studies to provide rigorous field-based evidence regarding how financial training supported by text-message reminders can influence mobile-money behavior. It is also among the very first to study the effects of such an intervention among members of Village Savings and Loan Associations.

Food markets have been found to be, in many settings, important in shaping diets and nutritional outcomes. However, more evidence and improved metrics are needed to understand these relationships. We examined relationships between food market participation and household dietary diversity in populations of rural Malawi facing hunger and poor nutrition. We analysed, using Poisson regression, survey data from 400 households in two districts of rural Malawi in post-harvest and lean seasons of 2017/18. We also developed a new metric of food purchases to support our examination of food market participation. The findings include clear associations between food purchase diversity and household dietary diversity, and suggest households engaging more with food markets are more likely to have diversified diets and better nutrition.