Egg Consumption Clinical Trial
Official title:
Complementary Feeding Project in Ethiopia
The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), a Swiss-based foundation, implemented a complementary feeding project to improve dietary quality among children 6-59 months of age living in Ethiopia by improving demand and access to eggs. Using a quasi-experimental design and two separate cross-sectional surveys at baseline and end-line, the evaluation seeks to determine the effects of the program on egg consumption, availability of eggs, caregivers' behaviours toward eggs, and caregivers' willingness to pay for eggs.
The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), a Swiss-based foundation, implemented a complementary feeding project to improve dietary quality among children 6-59 months of age living in Ethiopia by improving demand and access to eggs. The complementary feeding project aimed to boost children's consumption of eggs. The intervention incorporated demand creation campaigns and supported selected delivery channels and producers who provided eggs to communities. GAIN's demand creation strategy was designed to complement the Ethiopian government's effort to use social and behavior change communication to encourage consumption of nutritious complementary foods. This campaign was implemented through the existing health extension system. Areas included in the intervention arm received direct support for egg producers and suppliers and an egg demand creation campaign. Supply-side interventions included training for farmers, identification of distribution channels, mapping of retailers, and creation of linkages between egg producers and egg suppliers. Egg demand-creation activities were executed through above-the-line (ATL) and below-the-line (BTL) campaigns. The ATL campaigns included radio messages, bajaja branding, billboard mounting, and digital promotion. The BTL campaigns include market activation, road shows, sensitization workshops for key community groups, door-to-door promotion, and mobile promotion in collaboration with creative agencies and health extension workers. Both sets of activities focused on creating awareness around eggs as a daily nutritious food option for children. Originally, the study intended to also increase availability of, and demand for, commercially-available complementary foods (i.e., Cerifam and Fafa), however, these components of the intervention were not delivered. Therefore, we have removed these components from the description and removed the outcomes that corresponded with these components of the intervention. Using a quasi-experimental design and two separate cross-sectional surveys at baseline and end-line, the evaluation seeks to determine the effects of the program on egg consumption, availability of eggs, caregivers' behaviours toward eggs, and caregivers' willingness to pay for eggs. ;