Ethnicity, information and cooperation: Evidence from a group-based nutrition intervention
Development programs often rely on locally hired agents for service delivery, especially for interventions promoting agricultural practices, health, and nutrition. These agents are key to reaching underserved communities, especially women, with information and services around recommended practices....
| Autores principales: | , , |
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| Formato: | Journal Article |
| Lenguaje: | Inglés |
| Publicado: |
Elsevier
2023
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| Acceso en línea: | https://hdl.handle.net/10568/140388 |
| _version_ | 1855520911367602176 |
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| author | Raghunathan, Kalyani Alvi, Muzna Sehgal, Mrignyani |
| author_browse | Alvi, Muzna Raghunathan, Kalyani Sehgal, Mrignyani |
| author_facet | Raghunathan, Kalyani Alvi, Muzna Sehgal, Mrignyani |
| author_sort | Raghunathan, Kalyani |
| collection | Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (CGSpace) |
| description | Development programs often rely on locally hired agents for service delivery, especially for interventions promoting agricultural practices, health, and nutrition. These agents are key to reaching underserved communities, especially women, with information and services around recommended practices. However, where societies are socially stratified, differences in ethnic identities between agents and beneficiaries may impact the effectiveness of information and service delivery and the uptake of recommended behaviors. We explore the salience of shared ethnic identity between agents and beneficiaries in promoting collective action using a field experiment with women’s self-help groups (SHGs) in India. We cross-randomize an information treatment and a group-agent shared ethnicity treatment at the SHG level. We measure impacts on individual group member information retention and willingness to contribute to a group-owned kitchen garden that could improve access to a diverse and nutritious diet. We find information retention is better when the group is matched with an agent lower in the ethnic hierarchy, but that agents higher in the hierarchy elicit greater individual contributions to the group-owned kitchen garden. We suggest some hypotheses for these seemingly contradictory results. Other characteristics like education, group cohesion and perceived agent ability also matter in changing knowledge and contribution. Our findings have important implications for effective program design and implementation, suggesting that implementers need to consider factors beyond the information content, target group and pedagogical mode of delivery for their strategies to be transformative. |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | CGSpace140388 |
| institution | CGIAR Consortium |
| language | Inglés |
| publishDate | 2023 |
| publishDateRange | 2023 |
| publishDateSort | 2023 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| publisherStr | Elsevier |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | CGSpace1403882025-10-26T13:02:01Z Ethnicity, information and cooperation: Evidence from a group-based nutrition intervention Raghunathan, Kalyani Alvi, Muzna Sehgal, Mrignyani health services agriculture nutrition self-help groups development programmes ethnic groups domestic gardens information behaviour diet women Development programs often rely on locally hired agents for service delivery, especially for interventions promoting agricultural practices, health, and nutrition. These agents are key to reaching underserved communities, especially women, with information and services around recommended practices. However, where societies are socially stratified, differences in ethnic identities between agents and beneficiaries may impact the effectiveness of information and service delivery and the uptake of recommended behaviors. We explore the salience of shared ethnic identity between agents and beneficiaries in promoting collective action using a field experiment with women’s self-help groups (SHGs) in India. We cross-randomize an information treatment and a group-agent shared ethnicity treatment at the SHG level. We measure impacts on individual group member information retention and willingness to contribute to a group-owned kitchen garden that could improve access to a diverse and nutritious diet. We find information retention is better when the group is matched with an agent lower in the ethnic hierarchy, but that agents higher in the hierarchy elicit greater individual contributions to the group-owned kitchen garden. We suggest some hypotheses for these seemingly contradictory results. Other characteristics like education, group cohesion and perceived agent ability also matter in changing knowledge and contribution. Our findings have important implications for effective program design and implementation, suggesting that implementers need to consider factors beyond the information content, target group and pedagogical mode of delivery for their strategies to be transformative. 2023-10 2024-03-14T12:09:27Z 2024-03-14T12:09:27Z Journal Article https://hdl.handle.net/10568/140388 en Open Access Elsevier Raghunathan, Kalyani; Alvi, Muzna Fatima; and Sehgal, Mrignyani. 2023. Ethnicity, information and cooperation: Evidence from a group-based nutrition intervention. Food Policy 120(October 2023): 102478. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2023.102478 |
| spellingShingle | health services agriculture nutrition self-help groups development programmes ethnic groups domestic gardens information behaviour diet women Raghunathan, Kalyani Alvi, Muzna Sehgal, Mrignyani Ethnicity, information and cooperation: Evidence from a group-based nutrition intervention |
| title | Ethnicity, information and cooperation: Evidence from a group-based nutrition intervention |
| title_full | Ethnicity, information and cooperation: Evidence from a group-based nutrition intervention |
| title_fullStr | Ethnicity, information and cooperation: Evidence from a group-based nutrition intervention |
| title_full_unstemmed | Ethnicity, information and cooperation: Evidence from a group-based nutrition intervention |
| title_short | Ethnicity, information and cooperation: Evidence from a group-based nutrition intervention |
| title_sort | ethnicity information and cooperation evidence from a group based nutrition intervention |
| topic | health services agriculture nutrition self-help groups development programmes ethnic groups domestic gardens information behaviour diet women |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/10568/140388 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT raghunathankalyani ethnicityinformationandcooperationevidencefromagroupbasednutritionintervention AT alvimuzna ethnicityinformationandcooperationevidencefromagroupbasednutritionintervention AT sehgalmrignyani ethnicityinformationandcooperationevidencefromagroupbasednutritionintervention |