1. Impact of the Egyptian Food Bank’s
General Feeding Program: Baseline and
Midline findings
International Food Policy Research Institute
May 07, 2023
Kibrom Abay, Country Program Leader, IFPRI
(in collaboration with the IFPRI-Egypt team)

2. Motivation
• Despite some progresses to end hunger, a significant share of the world’s population
continues to suffer from food insecurity and malnutrition.
• Recent evaluations suggest that the United Nations 2030 Agenda for SDG to end
hunger may not be achieved in the remaining few years
•

3. Challenging Conditions
• Egypt was not spared from these
recurring global crises
• Food inflation tripled since the
outbreak of the Russian-Ukraine
crisis
• This generates double burden to
social protection programs

4. EFB’s General Feeding Program (GFP)
• The GFP provides monthly food boxes to ultra-poor households
• EFB’s beneficiaries are the ultra-poor households, which according to the
CAPMAS 2020 census make up to 4.5 percent of the Egyptian population
• The EFB uses community-based organizations (CBOs) as recruiting partners
• Potential program beneficiaries are further screened by EFB for compliance with
eligibility requirements such as being a female-headed household and reporting an
income insufficient to cover basic needs

5. Intervention
• The EFB is redesigning the GFP, and food boxes are being redesigned to include
more diverse and nutrient dense food items.
• This is being accompanied by a complementary awareness campaign to promote
and enhance healthy eating habits and food preparation
• This study aims to evaluate the absolute and relative impact of the newly designed
food package
• This study aims to quantify potential impacts on:
• Household dietary diversity
• Experience of food insecurity
• Nutritional intake
• Beneficiaries’ Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices (KAP).

6. Intervention
Old Box New Box

7. Experimental Design
• The intervention followed a clustered randomized approach
• The randomization was done at the level of villages
• We started with a complete list of villages from the census
• Villages were stratified across governorate and rural/urban areas
• We randomly chose 250 communities and randomly assigned them into five
treatment arms (50 each)
• Sampling within strata was proportional to strata size
• We dropped and replaced communities:
• With no partner community-based organization for the EFB
• Those with very few potential beneficiaries (as identified by the CBOs)

8. TBD
Endline Data
Collection
21 March
2023
Midline Data
Collection
End
5 March
2023
Midline Data
Collection
Start
20 August
2022
Baseline Data
Collection
Start
14 November
2022
Intervention Start
22 October
2022
Baseline Data
Collection
End
Implementation Timeline
Treatment Arms
1. New Box Only
2. New Box and Messaging
3. Old Box Only
4. Messaging Only
5. Control
Treatment Arms
1. New Box Only
2. New Box and Messaging
3. Old Box Only
4. Messaging Only
5. Control
Treatment Arms
1. New Box Only
2. New Box and Messaging
3. Old Box Only
4. Messaging Only
5. Control
2 months

9. Results and Discussion

10. Household Dietary Diversity (1)
• The control group
experienced
deterioration in dietary
diversity
• Those who received
the box were protected
• Indeed, the New Box
increased dietary
diversity

11. Food Insecurity Experience Score (1)
• Food Insecurity
Experience Scale
(FIES)-Increased for
the control group
• Those receiving the
box felt protected
• Indeed, FIES
improved for those
households receiving
the New Box

12. Household Dietary Diversity (2)
• The protective role of
the New Box is
stronger for those not
receiving Tamween

13. Table 4: Impact of the New and Old Box on Household Dietary Diversity
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
HDDS HDDS Nutrient dense
foods (milk,
meat, dates and
nuts)
Nutrient dense
foods (milk,
meat, dates
and nuts)
Nutrient dense
foods (milk,
meat, dates
and nuts)
Nutrient dense
foods (milk,
meat, dates and
nuts)
Received a box 0.580**
0.046 0.035
(0.244) (0.029) (0.023)
Round dummy -0.647***
-0.647***
-0.033 -0.033 -0.035*
-0.035*
(0.211) (0.211) (0.025) (0.025) (0.020) (0.020)
Received New Box 0.869***
0.075**
0.058**
(0.255) (0.031) (0.026)
Received Old Box 0.282 0.016 0.011
(0.282) (0.031) (0.026)
Constant 9.734***
9.734***
0.935***
0.935***
0.069***
0.069***
(0.053) (0.052) (0.006) (0.006) (0.005) (0.005)
R-squared 0.030 0.043 0.004 0.010 0.004 0.007
Mean of dependent
variable at baseline
9.728 9.728 0.934 0.934 0.069 0.069
No. observations 4623 4623 4623 4623 4623 4623
Notes. Standard errors, clustered at the village level, are in parentheses. *
p < 0.10, **
p < 0.05, ***
p < 0.01.

14. • Heterogenous treatment effects: the food boxes are more effective for those
not receiving Tamween
Table 5: Heterogenous treatment effects across Tamween beneficiaries
(1) (2) (3) (4)
HDDS HDDS HDDS HDDS
Received a box 0.442*
0.969***
(0.231) (0.363)
Round dummy -0.531***
-0.531***
-0.982***
-0.982***
(0.191) (0.191) (0.326) (0.326)
Received New Box 0.720***
1.342***
(0.249) (0.378)
Received Old Box 0.147 0.620
(0.272) (0.401)
Constant 9.808***
9.809***
9.438***
9.435***
Received a box (0.052) (0.051) (0.076) (0.074)
R-squared 0.023 0.035 0.060 0.077
Mean of dependent variable at baseline 9.802 9.802 9.427 9.427
No. observations 3680 3680 943 943
Notes. Standard errors, clustered at the village level, are in parentheses. *
p < 0.10, **
p < 0.05, ***
p < 0.01

15. How popular are food boxes?
• Preference for in-kind
food box over
equivalent cash
significantly increased
in the midline
• This more so, for those
exposed to the New
Box.

16. Concluding Remarks
• In the absence of food subsidies, dietary diversity and food security
deteriorated
• However, the food boxes did play protective roles
• Indeed, the New Box increased dietary diversity and reduced food
insecurity
• The protective role of the New Box is stronger for those not receiving
Tamween
• Preference for in-kind food box over equivalent cash significantly
increased in the midline and more so for those exposed to the New Box
• Inflation and exposure to in-kind box