Healthy Diets Costing Study (Lishe Bora)

Study Context

Lishe Bora is a development intervention that subsidizes the cost of healthy foods for households in the Temeke neighborhood of Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. The intervention will offer randomly-selected households a coupon to purchase healthier food items at a local shop in their neighborhood. The intervention is intended to inform the design of public policies that encourage consumers to choose healthier foods in place of readily-available calorie-rich foods that offer little nutritional benefit.

Study Design

The Economic and Social Research Foundation (ESRF) will conduct a randomized evaluation in partnership with the International (IFPRI), while CEGA will lead the cost analysis to ensure that the costs measured match the interventions that are being evaluated. 

The cost study will be undertaken from the donor (societal) perspective. Specifically, we consider a program officer choosing an implementation strategy that delivers the largest increase in healthy foods consumption for the least cost, i.e. that obtains the highest impact per intended beneficiary for every dollar invested. All resources allocated to the study will be taken into consideration, including donations and volunteer time, to measure the cost of delivering the Lishe Bora program per beneficiary. CEGA will also work to measure how much each activity contributes to the total program cost, and will run sensitivity analysis to see how overall costs change under different circumstances.

Study Results

Results forthcoming