Information infrastructure and nutritious diets intake: evidence from West Africa

The increasing prevalence of malnutrition in sub-Saharan Africa amidst growing access to and use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in developing countries calls for the need to understand the link between information infrastructure and nutritious diets intake in sub-Saharan Africa. We investigate the impacts of internet café, ICT centre and community radio stations on household nutritious diets intake using the marginal treatment effects (MTE) framework, the principal stratification approach, and data from the Ghana Living Standards Survey rounds 6 and 7. The study reveals that farm households appear to benefit more than non-farm households from the information infrastructure. The effect of internet café on nutritious diets intake appears to be lower in magnitudes compared to the effects of the other information infrastructure. We also show that the nature of the gains from the infrastructure depends on the infrastructure type, and that differences in gains from information infrastructure are due to worse nutritious diets intake without the infrastructure. Our results suggest that access to extension advice, favourable market prices and farm output and revenue may be important impact mechanisms of the infrastructure. Finally, the study shows that providing infrastructure support such as electricity increases frequency of nutrient intake, per net shift in access to the information infrastructure.