CSPS Webinar on "Refrigeration, Food Insecurity and Nutrition: Causal Machine Learning Evidence from Ghana"

About 40% of the global population lacks access to safe and nutritious food, while 1.3 billion tons of food are wasted annually, often due to inadequate cold storage. This paper provides the first causal evidence on how refrigerator functionality affects household food insecurity. Using rich appliance data from Ghana, the study compares households with functioning refrigerators with others owning broken refrigerators. The novel empirical strategy that combines machine learning and entropy balancing reveals that households with broken fridges are significantly more food insecure and reduce consumption of animal-sourced foods. This results in a lower intake of key macro- and micronutrients, with implications for health and development. The findings highlight the overlooked importance of cold storage in improving food security and nutrition in low-income settings.

Register to join us on Zoom: bit.ly/43flsrM