MCC Indonesia Nutrition Project Impact Evaluation Interim Report

Child stunting affected an estimated 36 percent of children under age 5 in Indonesia in 2013, despite decades of reducing poverty, child mortality, and the fraction of children who were underweight (World Health Organization 2013). To address Indonesia’s undernutrition challenges, the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and Millennium Challenge Account-Indonesia (MCA-I) partnered with the Government of Indonesia (GoI) and other key stakeholders such as the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Villages to fund and implement the Community-Based Health and Nutrition to Reduce Stunting Project, also known as the Nutrition Project, in 11 of Indonesia’s 34 provinces from 2013 to 2018.

MCC contracted with Mathematica Policy Research to conduct a rigorous randomized evaluation of the Nutrition Project to understand the project’s effects on stunting and related key maternal and child health outcomes. The evaluation takes place in 3 of the 11 Nutrition Project provinces. The evaluation seeks to answer three key questions about the Nutrition Project: (1) How were the various components of the Nutrition Project implemented? (2) What is the impact of the Nutrition Project’s package of supply- and demand-side activities on key outcomes, including outcomes in maternal health, child health, behavioral practices, and receipt of health services? (3) What is the impact of the Nutrition Project on key subgroups, such as those defined by socioeconomic status, mothers’ level of schooling, children’s gender, geographic location (peripheral versus more connected areas), and service availability?

This report presents the findings from interim data collection for the Nutrition Project that took place between October and December 2017. The objective of the interim study is to examine project implementation progress and assess impacts on short- and medium-term outcomes that are hypothesized to lead to the project’s long-term goals, such as improvements in maternal and child health.