IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/wodepe/v21y2021ics2452292921000023.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The McGovern-Dole food for education and Child nutrition program (MGD): A comparative analysis of reading comprehension gains in Central America

Author

Listed:
  • Crea, Thomas M.
  • Neville, Sarah E.
  • Diaz-Valdes, Antonia
  • Evans, Kerri
  • Urizar, Brenda
  • Drummer, Emily
  • Acevedo, Jose
  • Canelas, Olga
  • Medina, Marlon
  • Mallman, Jennifer

Abstract

The McGovern-Dole Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program (MGD), funded by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), is one of the most prominent school feeding programs implemented globally. MGD’s primary objective is to increase childhood literacy. Yet, despite MGD’s being in operation since 2002 - and school feeding programs’ being implemented in Central America for decades - few empirical studies have examined the extent to which school feeding programs are linked to increased literacy, and specifically reading comprehension. This study examines increases in reading comprehension associated with implementation of MGD over a three-year period in rural departments of Guatemala and Honduras. Specific attention is paid to differences in program design and implementation between the two countries. Results show that reading comprehension significantly increased over time in both countries. Children in lower grades showed more pronounced gains, suggesting that early intervention is important in terms of school feeding and curriculum supports. Effect sizes were greater in Guatemala but with lower scores than Honduras, though measurement differences make side-by-side interpretation difficult. These results are discussed in light of evaluation constraints that point the way towards improved research designs in the future – and to the importance of rigorous evaluation in helping secure the political will to sustain and scale up programs.

Suggested Citation

  • Crea, Thomas M. & Neville, Sarah E. & Diaz-Valdes, Antonia & Evans, Kerri & Urizar, Brenda & Drummer, Emily & Acevedo, Jose & Canelas, Olga & Medina, Marlon & Mallman, Jennifer, 2021. "The McGovern-Dole food for education and Child nutrition program (MGD): A comparative analysis of reading comprehension gains in Central America," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 21(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:wodepe:v:21:y:2021:i:c:s2452292921000023
    DOI: 10.1016/j.wdp.2021.100288
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2452292921000023
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.wdp.2021.100288?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Maria Cheung & Maria Perrotta Berlin, 2015. "The Impact of a Food for Education Program on Schooling in Cambodia," Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 2(1), pages 44-57, January.
    2. Graeme D. Ruxton, 2006. "The unequal variance t-test is an underused alternative to Student's t-test and the Mann--Whitney U test," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 17(4), pages 688-690, July.
    3. Harold Alderman & Donald Bundy, 2012. "School Feeding Programs and Development: Are We Framing the Question Correctly?," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 27(2), pages 204-221, August.
    4. Harold Alderman & Daniel O. Gilligan & Kim Lehrer, 2012. "The Impact of Food for Education Programs on School Participation in Northern Uganda," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 61(1), pages 187-218.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Abay, Kibrom A. & Amare, Mulubrhan & Tiberti, Luca & Andam, Kwaw S. & Wang, Michael, 2022. "COVID-19-induced disruptions of school feeding services exacerbate food insecurity in Nigeria," IFPRI book chapters, in: COVID-19 and global food security: Two years later, chapter 23, pages 135-137, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    2. Kaur, Randeep, 2021. "Estimating the impact of school feeding programs: Evidence from mid day meal scheme of India," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    3. Independent Evaluation Group, 2014. "Social Safety Nets and Gender : Learning from Impact Evaluations and World Bank Projects," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 21365, December.
    4. Roxana Elena Manea, 2021. "School Feeding Programmes, Education and Food Security in Rural Malawi," CIES Research Paper series 63-2020, Centre for International Environmental Studies, The Graduate Institute.
    5. Kang, Wenjin & Tang, Ke & Wang, Ningli, 2023. "Financialization of commodity markets ten years later," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 30(C).
    6. Ling Jia & Queena K. Qian & Frits Meijer & Henk Visscher, 2020. "Stakeholders’ Risk Perception: A Perspective for Proactive Risk Management in Residential Building Energy Retrofits in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-25, April.
    7. Kim Young Joo & Skibniewski Miroslaw J., 2020. "Unsuccessful bids: Coefficient of variation of bids as indicator of project risk," Organization, Technology and Management in Construction, Sciendo, vol. 12(1), pages 2193-2199, January.
    8. Wallert, John & Ekman, Urban & Westman, Eric & Madison, Guy, 2017. "The worst performance rule with elderly in abnormal cognitive decline," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 9-17.
    9. Lara Cockx & Nathalie Francken, 2016. "Evolution and impact of EU aid for food and nutrition security: a review," Working Papers of LICOS - Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance 572519, KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), LICOS - Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance.
    10. Chakraborty, Tanika & Jayaraman, Rajshri, 2019. "School feeding and learning achievement: Evidence from India's midday meal program," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 249-265.
    11. Caitlin Wall & Terezie Tolar-Peterson & Nicole Reeder & Marina Roberts & Abby Reynolds & Gina Rico Mendez, 2022. "The Impact of School Meal Programs on Educational Outcomes in African Schoolchildren: A Systematic Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(6), pages 1-13, March.
    12. Tamar Balgiashvili, 2017. "Comparing Entrepreneurial Passion of Social and Commercial Entrepreneurs in the Czech Republic," Central European Business Review, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2017(4), pages 45-61.
    13. Jingru Ren & Xiaodong Zheng & Rodney Smith & Xiangming Fang, 2023. "School feeding program and urban–rural inequality of child health: Evidence from China," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(S1), pages 1399-1416, December.
    14. Murphy-Graham, Erin & Pacheco Montoya, Diana & Cohen, Alison K. & Valencia Lopez, Enrique, 2021. "Examining school dropout among rural youth in Honduras: Evidence from a mixed-methods longitudinal study," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    15. Bernd W. Wirtz & Oliver Tuna Kurtz, 2017. "Determinants of Citizen Usage Intentions in e-Government: An Empirical Analysis," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 353-372, September.
    16. World Bank Group, 2016. "Cash Transfers in Humanitarian Contexts," World Bank Publications - Reports 24699, The World Bank Group.
    17. Charles Bettembourg & Christian Diot & Olivier Dameron, 2015. "Optimal Threshold Determination for Interpreting Semantic Similarity and Particularity: Application to the Comparison of Gene Sets and Metabolic Pathways Using GO and ChEBI," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(7), pages 1-30, July.
    18. Lentz, Erin C. & Barrett, Christopher B., 2013. "The economics and nutritional impacts of food assistance policies and programs," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 151-163.
    19. Gaspard Philis & Friederike Ziegler & Lars Christian Gansel & Mona Dverdal Jansen & Erik Olav Gracey & Anne Stene, 2019. "Comparing Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Salmonid Aquaculture Production Systems: Status and Perspectives," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(9), pages 1-27, April.
    20. Qi Zhang & Zuobin Ying & Jianhang Zhou & Jingzhang Sun & Bob Zhang, 2023. "Broad Learning Model with a Dual Feature Extraction Strategy for Classification," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(19), pages 1-22, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:wodepe:v:21:y:2021:i:c:s2452292921000023. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/world-development-perspectives .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.