培养营养：来自菲律宾结构化电子食品券随机试验的证据

ADB Economics Working Paper Series Nurturing Nutrition: Evidence from a Randomized Trial David A. Raitzer (draitzer@adb.org) is a senior economistand Odbayar Batmunkh (odbayar316@gmail.com)is a consultant at the Economic Researchand Development Impact Department, AsianDevelopment Bank (ADB). Rita Abdel Sater(abdelsaterr@afd.fr) and Julia Girard (girardj@afd.fr)are impact evaluation officers at Agence Française deDéveloppement. Lennart Reiners (lreiners@adb.org) David A. Raitzer, Rita Abdel Sater,Odbayar Batmunkh, Julia Girard,Lennart Reiners, and Amir JilaniNo. 828 | December 2025 TheADB Economics Working Paper Seriespresents research in progress to elicit commentsand encourage debate on development issuesin Asia and the Pacific. The views expressedare those of the authors and do not necessarilyreflect the views and policies of ADB or Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 IGO license (CC BY 3.0 IGO) © 2025 Asian Development Bank6 ADB Avenue, Mandaluyong City, 1550 Metro Manila, Philippines Some rights reserved. Published in 2025. ISSN 2313-6537 (print), 2313-6545 (PDF)Publication Stock No. WPS250487-2DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22617/WPS250487-2 The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views and policiesof the Asian Development Bank (ADB) or its Board of Governors or the governments they represent. ADB does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this publication and accepts no responsibility for anyconsequence of their use. The mention of specific companies or products of manufacturers does not imply that they By making any designation of or reference to a particular territory or geographic area in this document, ADB does notintend to make any judgments as to the legal or other status of any territory or area. This publication is available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 IGO license (CC BY 3.0 IGO)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/. By using the content of this publication, you agree to be boundby the terms of this license. For attribution, translations, adaptations, and permissions, please read the provisions This CC license does not apply to non-ADB copyright materials in this publication. If the material is attributedto another source, please contact the copyright owner or publisher of that source for permission to reproduce it. Please contact pubsmarketing@adb.org if you have questions or comments with respect to content, or if you wishto obtain copyright permission for your intended use that does not fall within these terms, or for permission to use ABSTRACT We present the findings of a pilot that randomized provision of structured electronic foodvouchers to poor households in the Philippines, which was designed to inform a new nationalfood voucher program.The study utilized a matched pair cluster-randomized controlled trial toevaluate the effectiveness of vouchers plus nutrition education sessions. It involved 4,883 poorhouseholds across five provinces, randomly assigned to the control group or to receive nutritioneducation and monthly electronic food vouchers worth PHP3,000 ($55) with pre-allocated sharesfor different food groups.After 6 months, statistically significant improvements are found in JEL codes:I12, I18, H23, I38 1INTRODUCTION The global prevalence of undernourishment rose to 9.1% in 2023, with Asia accounting for morethan half of the world’s population living with hunger (UNICEF et al., 2025). The relative affordabilityof food is an important driver of undernutrition. Diet quality data collected from 28 mostly lower- Voucher assistance programs can help address food affordability. When it comes to directlyaddressing food insecurity at the household level, rather than the market level, there has been ashift in thinking and practice away from direct food or in-kind transfers towards cash or voucherassistance programs, which allow beneficiaries more agency.For example, cash or voucherassistance accounted for 24% of global funding use for international humanitarian assistance in Evidence suggests food assistance programs (mainly cash and in-kind transfers) can beeffective.Evaluations of global food assistance programs support these claims, although thefindings are mixed and not necessarily comparable across contexts. A 2023 rapid review of foodsubsidies, including vouchers for food purchases, food distribution, and discount vouchers, foundthat most programs had only low to moderate effects on consumption,price,and healthoutcomes (Mansilla, Herrera, and von Uexkull, 2023).However, this review mainly included The consumption effects of programs were generally more observed with greater subsidyintensity and when food programs were implemented concurrently with existing social assistance when interventions were (i) targeted to households with young children and (ii) combined withsocial and behavioral change communication (SBCC) on infant and young child feeding practices While there i