Fresh insights from new research shaping Africa’s food systems, resilience, and economic development
Key Insight of the Week
Better nutrition outcomes depend on more than household resources
New evidence from Nigeria shows that regional differences in child malnutrition cannot be explained by differences in household assets alone. The study finds that the returns to household resources—such as income, maternal education, and access to basic services—are systematically lower in northern regions, pointing to deeper structural constraints in food systems and service environments.
Featured Report of the Week
Double burden of malnutrition in Nigeria: Trends, drivers, and regional disparities among children by Oliver K. Kirui, Temilolu Bamiwuye, Mulubrhan Amare, and Chibuzo Nwagboso
Malnutrition remains a major challenge in Nigeria, with important implications for human capital, productivity, and inclusive development. This study examines how child nutrition outcomes have evolved across Nigeria and why substantial regional disparities persist.
Drawing on four rounds of the Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS), covering 2008 to 2023–24, the researchers analyze trends in child malnutrition and investigate the socioeconomic, demographic, and contextual factors associated with these outcomes. They combine pooled binary and multinomial logistic regression models with a Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition to distinguish differences related to household endowments from differences in how those endowments translate into nutrition outcomes.
The findings point to deteriorating nutritional outcomes, including rising stunting and wasting, alongside persistent regional inequalities. Stunting and wasting are disproportionately concentrated in northern zones, including among households with comparable levels of assets. The decomposition analysis suggests that these regional gaps are driven more by systematically lower returns to income, maternal education, and access to basic services than by differences in household endowments themselves.
The study links these lower returns to structural constraints including inefficient food systems, limited service quality, restrictive gender norms, conflict exposure, and weak complementarities between household investments and local service environments. The findings therefore point beyond household-level interventions alone: reducing regional nutrition gaps also requires strengthening the systems and services that determine how effectively household investments translate into better outcomes.
The key policy insight: improving nutrition requires not only investing in households, but also improving the environments in which those investments can generate results.
Other Recent Publications
Double burden of malnutrition in Nigeria: Trends, drivers, and regional disparities among children (OA)
Kirui, Oliver K.; Bamiwuye, Temilolu; Amare, Mulubrhan; Nwagboso, Chibuzo
IFPRI Discussion Paper
Exposure to multiple shocks and fragility: Distinct but connected dimensions of vulnerability in polycrisis contexts (OA)
Kebede, Sindu W.; Ulimwengu, John M.
IFPRI Discussion Paper
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