130 CHAPTER 8


Dietary Diversity Most programs demonstrated positive impacts on dietary diversity, which can provide necessary nutrients for HIV-positive individuals. FACT beneficiary households consumed more diversified diets than did nonbeneficiaries. In late 2005, all households had very low dietary diversity scores, indicating that they were eating foods from an average of two distinct food groups per day. For nonbeneficiary households (and to a lesser degree female-headed benefi- ciary households), these scores fell during the hungry season (January and February) until March harvests provided staple cereal and root crops, pulses, and vegetables. Beneficiary households, in contrast, experienced consistently higher dietary diversity scores throughout the program period, and by March, the dietary diversity scores for both male- and female-headed beneficiary households surpassed a score of 3 (Figure 8.4). One explanation for this higher score is that FACT provided three food groups in its food package—cereals (maize), pulses (beans), and fat (oil)—which improved both food consumption and dietary diversity for recipient households. In addition to the food trans- fer, the FACT cash transfer enabled beneficiaries to purchase additional foods, including vegetables, meat, and fish (Devereux, Mvula, and Solomon 2006, 37–38).


During the first four months of the DECT project in Malawi, beneficiaries experienced a slight increase in dietary diversity—from consuming foods from an average of 2.5 food groups in November 2006 to consuming foods from an average of 3 food groups in male-headed households and 2.8 in female- headed households in March 2007. In April 2007, when the spending of the DECT transfer on food was at its lowest, dietary diversity increased by even more, reaching 4 food groups for male-headed households and 3.6 for female- headed households. According to the evaluation of DECT, this makes it diffi- cult to attribute changes in dietary diversity to the cash transfer but does not diminish the impact of DECT on increasing the purchase and consumption of basic food items (Devereux et al. 2007, 36). Zambia’s Social Cash Transfer Scheme improved the dietary diversity of


beneficiary households. The average weekly frequency of fat consumption rose from 0.67 days a week to almost 2 days a week, and the percentage of households consuming oil at least once a week rose from 18 to 48 percent. The percentage of households consuming proteins 7 days a week increased from 23 to 35 percent, and the percentage of households consuming vitamins 7 days a week increased from 72 to 84 percent. Program beneficiaries also increased their consumption of cultivated and wild vegetables (66 to 82 per- cent and 69 to 76 percent, respectively), cultivated fruits (17 to 18 percent), and dried vegetables (1 to 16 percent). Consumption of wild fruits fell from 57 to 26 percent, indicating an improved food situation, because consuming


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