Lack of infrastructure has emerged as a major challenge for agricultural development in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. It poses a great risk to livelihoods and threatens food and nutrition security, depriving people of access to healthy, affordable food, and quality nutrition and care.
Yet we know that infrastructure fosters inclusive growth and maximizes positive impacts such as improved well-being, sustainable development and empowerment of women and girls. When planned, delivered, and managed in line with a gender-inclusive and responsive approach, it can help to address gender-based barriers. These impede access to services and rein-force structural inequities for women and girls at the household and market levels.
Physical infrastructure such as roads, electricity, markets, and water supply systems play an important role in ensuring that low-income consumers have access to nutritious foods all year round. However, there is insufficient empirical evidence on how infrastructure impacts improved diet and nutrition outcomes among low-income consumers. We are not aware of any studies that have looked at causal impacts of large-scale infrastructure programs on outcomes surrounding affordability and accessibility of safe and nutritious foods. It is in light of such evidence gaps that the International Centre for Evaluation and Development (ICED) is undertaking this research study.
The goal of this research study on the Impact of Infrastructure on Nutritious Diet, Women’s Empowerment, and Gender Equality is to identify cost-effective, scalable, and inclusive ways to ensure the availability of affordable and nutritious foods year-round in sub-Saharan Africa while contributing to women's economic empowerment. This project aims at improving understanding on the impacts and pathways connecting infrastructural development to diet, markets, and women's economic empowerment. Such understanding would contribute to bringing African countries closer to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2, 3, 5 and 10.
