

Topic
AID AND CHILD HEALTH: A DISAGGREGATED ANALYSIS OF THE EFFECTS OF AID ON IMPAIRED GROWTH
DATE
Wednesday,
17 April 2024
TIME
11H00-12H00 (SAST)
MEETING ID: 683 927 9256 PASSCODE: 65234
11H00-12H00 (SAST)

SPEAKER
PROFESSOR DICK DUREVALL
PROFESSOR IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS: UNIVERSITY OF GOTHENBURG
Dick Durevall is a Professor in Development Economics at the University of Gothenburg. His
research interests include HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa, intimate partner violence, food
markets, development macroeconomics, and international economics.
ABOUT THE WEBINAR
Motivated by a recent setback in the fight against child malnutrition, this study explores whether aid projects help reduce stunting
or impaired growth among children close to project sites. Focusing on Malawi, a country with a very high stunting prevalence for
which we have access to geo-referenced data on aid projects from a broad range of donors, we geographically match spatial data
on 778 aid project sites of 22 different donors with anthropometric and background data on 26,604 children under the age of 5. The
detailed data allows for a disaggregated analysis comparing local aid impacts by types of aid, donor- and recipient groups. To identify
the effect of aid, we rely on spatial and temporal variation in aid project coverage and survey rollout, coupled with variation in the
child’s age at aid exposure. The empirical results consistently indicate a positive impact of early-life aid exposure on child growth.
The positive treatment effect, which is most consistent for children born 0-4 years after project start, is seemingly driven primarily
by multilateral- and social sector aid. The analysis of the mechanisms at work is still in progress but preliminary findings indicate that
mother’s education, household wealth and sanitation are the most important ones.