Judging the merit of child feeding; a development handbook for planners, managers, and evaluators

It is based on the results of a pilot evaluation study of maternal child health clinics and school feeding operations at thirty selected sites in Colombia, Kenya, and the Philippines. Its four basic objectives are: to create a design for the rigorous assessment of feeding projects; to field test this design; to analyze and to present the results of the field tests; and to refine the design and to explain its rationale and methods. The handbook is organized into three parts. Part One deals with conceptual issues raised by evaluations generally and by studies of child feeding in particular. Part Two discusses specific tasks necessary to a thorough evaluation research project. Part Three contains substantive findings of the pilot studies and gives key data elements. The goal of evaluation is to improve the use of scarce development resources. There is a need for improvement in the understanding of how child feeding operations are affected by their surroundings. Whether or not a child benefits from a program is a function of the child"s unique relationship to the family, the community, and the program.