Presentation by Masuma Yunus, DAE at the INGENAES Bangladesh Symposium in March 2017.

1. Orienting Agriculture Toward Improved Nutrition and
Women’s Empowerment (ANGeL)
Regional Symposium on integrating Gender and Nutrition in Ag Extension
Dhaka | 08 March 2017

2. Background Evidence

3. Overwhelming dominance of rice in diet: Share of
rice in total nutrient intakes of Bangladeshis
71
57
62
44
78
67
70
52
63
46
52
36
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
Food energy (calorie) Protein Zinc Iron
Percentageoftotalnutrientintake
All Poorest 20% Richest 20%
Source: IFPRI Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey (BIHS) 2012

4. Regional differences in percentage of women
empowered in agriculture: IFPRI’s WEAI study
4
30
28 27
20 20
12 11
23
0
10
20
30
40
BARISAL RAJSHAHI DHAKA RANGPUR KHULNA CHITTAGONG SYLHET BANGLADESH
Percentageofwomen
Source: Esha Sraboni, Agnes Quisumbing, and Akhter Ahmed, IFPRI, April 2013

5. Motivation
 Using IFPRI’s 2011-12 Bangladesh Integrated Household
Survey (BIHS) data and econometric modelling exercise
(instrumental variable regressions), IFPRI researchers found
that:
 Agricultural diversity increases household and child
dietary diversity, and hence, diet quality, after controlling
for income effect
 Women’s empowerment (measured by the Women’s
Empowerment in Agriculture Index – WEAI) improves
household, child, and maternal dietary diversity
 Women’s empowerment increases agricultural diversity
 IFPRI research in Bangladesh also shows that nutrition
behavior change communication (BCC) training imparted to
women and men in rural households leads to significant
improvements in child nutrition (TMRI, Alive & Thrive).

6. ANGeL project development and launch
 Motivated by research-based evidence from IFPRI studies in
Bangladesh, IFPRI developed a concept note to strengthen the
agriculture-nutrition-gender nexus in Bangladesh, which was
presented to the Ministry of Agriculture in June 2014.
 An inter-ministerial committee of the Government of
Bangladesh approved a pilot project jointly funded by the
Government of Bangladesh and USAID.
 “Orienting Agriculture Toward Improved Nutrition and
Women’s Empowerment,” also referred to as Agriculture,
Nutrition, and Gender Linkages (or ANGeL), was officially
launched by the honourable Minister of Agriculture on
October 29, 2015.
 ANGeL is being implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture,
and with technical assistance from IFPRI and Helen Keller
International.

7. ANGeL: Overall objective and policy relevance
Overall objective:
 Identify actions and investments in agriculture that would
lead to agricultural development for improved nutrition
 Make recommendations on how to strengthen pathways to
women’s empowerment—particularly within agriculture
The project addresses two important aspects of the National
Agricultural Policy 2013:
1. Encouraging crop diversification and crop production with
greater nutrition value for meeting the nutrition demand of
the population
2. Empowering women, encouraging their participation in
production and marketing for income generation, and
ensuring their nutritional status for improving food and
nutrition security

8. ANGeL implementing partners
 Agricultural Policy Support (APSU) of the Ministry of
Agriculture and
 Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) implement the
pilot project, with technical assistance from IFPRI
 Other MOA partners include Bangladesh Agricultural Research
Institute (BARI), Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI),
Bangladesh Institute of Research and Training on Applied
Nutrition (BIRTAN), Bangladesh Agricultural Development
Corporation (BADC)
 HKI

9. Why agricultural extension is engaged?
 Agricultural extension network of the government already in
place nationwide with ‘topping-up’ their current agricultural
production portfolio with nutrition activities and messages.
 Agriculture extension workers are a promising vehicle to deliver
nutrition knowledge and practices
 They maintain contact and have established relationships with
the people and the communities where they are based. With
this, they are aware of the local social norms, cultures, and
belief systems that help nutrition messaging.

10. ANGeL Project Design

11. ANGeL project design
 The pilot project implements and evaluates the impact of
three alternative interventions and their 5 combinations. The
interventions are:
 Agriculture Production: Facilitating the production of the
high-value food commodities rich in essential nutrients.
The focus is on diversifying agricultural production (fruits
and vegetables, pulses, oilseeds, poultry, dairy, fish,
livestock)
 Nutrition BCC: Imparting high-quality behavior change
communication (BCC) to farmers to improve nutrition
 Gender Sensitization: Undertaking activities that lead to
the improvement in the status/empowerment of women

12. Treatment arms and control
ANGeL has 5 treatment arms and a control arm:
 T1: Nutrition BCC (training delivered to women and men by
agricultural extension agents from the DAE, most likely all men)
 T2: Nutrition BCC-2 (training delivered by local community women
hired by the project)
 T3: Agricultural Production (training delivered to men and women)
 T4: Ag. Production (training delivered to men and women) + BCC
 T5: Ag. Production to (training delivered to men and women) +
BCC + gender sensitization to women and men
 C: Control

13. Evaluation method
 Randomized controlled trial (RCT) method to evaluate the impact of
ANGeL
 Sample agricultural blocks are randomly assigned to treatment and
control groups
 The impact evaluation involves two rounds of comprehensive
household surveys
 The first survey is designed as a baseline, conducted in
Completed in January 2016, just before the start of project
activities
 The second follow-up survey will be conducted 24 months later,
shortly after the second year of project activities are completed
in December 2017
 The longitudinal dataset that will emerge from the two rounds of
surveys will enable researchers to construct difference-in-
differences (or double difference) impact estimates—meaning, they
will determine the difference between the change in the treatment
group and the change in the control group.

14. ANGEL IN NUMBERS
• 3125 farm families: Families with children under age two were
selected. At the end of the project, researchers will assess the
impacts on child nutrition outcomes such as stunting, as well as
maternal, child, and family dietary diversity for these families.
• 100 agriculture extension agents: By drawing upon the
government’s nationwide agricultural extension workforce,
ANGeL’s design can be scaled up nationally and sustained after the
conclusion of the project.
• 16 upazilas under 16 districts across rural Bangladesh: To make
sure ANGeL’s findings are nationally representative, ANGeL covers
a wide variety of settings, and were purposively selected for good
market connectivity and agro-ecological suitability.

15. ANGeL upazilas

16. Outcome indicators
Using the RCT with data from baseline and end line surveys,
researchers will estimate impacts of each of the 6 modalities on:
 Incomes of farmers (by marginal, small, medium, and large farm
size groups)
 Household, child, and maternal dietary diversity (measured by food
consumption score and dietary diversity score)
 Child nutritional status in terms of stunting, wasting, and
underweight (from anthropometric measurements of height and
weight of children under 5 years of age)
 Nutritional status of child bearing-age women (measured by body
mass index)
 Women’s social status
 and empowerment (measured by the Women’s Empowerment in
Agriculture Index – WEAI)

17. Progress in implementation
 Completed baseline survey in January 2016. Beneficiary and control
households selected.
 3 training manuals were prepared
 Orientation workshop of 16 DAE district and upazila officials was held in
Dhaka at APSU.
 5 training of trainer sessions were held in April and May 2016, where 100
sub-assistant agriculture officers (SAAOs) of DAE were trained on nutrition
BCC and agriculture production.
 25 local female community nutrition workers, or “ANGeL Pushti Kormis”
(APK), were selected and trained as trainers of farmers on nutrition
behavior change communication (BCC).
 In July 2016, field-level trainings of 3,125 farmers have started in all 16
districts across Bangladesh.
 Refreshers training for T1, T3, T4 and T5 arm in January-February 2017.

18. Next steps
 Completion of phase 2 farmers’ training (refresher training) by
November 2017
 Midline process evaluation in March 2017.
 End line survey from December 2017 – January 2018.
 Final report by September 2018.

19. Way forward
 After two years, the ANGeL experimental research will
identify which interventions most effectively increase
agricultural diversity, improve nutrition, and promote
women’s empowerment.
 The Ministry of Agriculture plans to use the research-based
evidence to scale up the most effective interventions all over
Bangladesh.
 ANGeL is the first ministry-led initiative that uses a rigorous
impact evaluation, the randomized controlled trial, to
develop an evidence base to design and implement a national
program.

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23. UAO Chandina is explaining food poster
UAO, Matiranga, APSU,DAE and IFPRI team are SAAO, Trishal is delivering the agriculture session
Country representative, IFPRI is observing farmer's training

24. SAAO, Matiranga is showing good fertilizer
SAAO of Bagharpara Upazila is explaining quantity
of food for young children.
Farmers are participating at group discussion on
different types of food in Golapganj upazila
Farmers are participating at group discussion on
different types of food in Golapganj upazila

25. 25
APK refresher training

26. 26
Gender TOT

27. Father groups participating in asset mapping
Importance of equality in family to ensure peace

28. Thank you