Numerous approaches have been developed by researchers for measuring intra-household decision-making.

Agricultural development projects increasingly aim to improve health and nutrition outcomes, often by engaging women.

Livestock markets influence income generation for producers, but also accessibility and affordability of highly nutritious animal-sourced foods for consumers.

Adolescence is a critical period of physical and psychological development, especially for girls as poor nutrition can affect their well-being as well as the well-being of their children.

Most studies of intrahousehold resource allocation examine outcomes and do not consider the decision-making process by which those outcomes are achieved.

Introduction Stunting or linear growth faltering, measured by length-for-age Z-score (LAZ), remains a significant public health challenge, particularly in rural low-income and middle-income countries.

Malawi has strong policies and frameworks for nutrition but insufficient funding to implement them.

Malawi is one of the most committed countries in Africa to improving nutrition, yet it still has one of the highest rates of malnutrition in the region and is struggling to turn commitments into action at scale.

Malawi has made significant progress in improving nutrition outcomes in the past decades. Despite this, the rates of stunting and anaemia remain high and overweight and obesity amongst women is rising.

A review of evidence was conducted to understand the trends and determinants of malnutrition and identify interventions and programmes that improved maternal and child nutrition in Malawi.

Unhealthy diets are a critical global concern while dietary measure methods are time consuming and expensive.

Background
Inadequate food and water resources negatively affect child health and the efficiency of nutrition interventions.

Low coverage of effective nutrition interventions in many high-burden countries, due to service provision and demand factors, result in poor uptake of recommended practices and nutrition outcomes.

Malnutrition continues to be a major health burden in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and is one of the predominant risk factors for ill health and death, with women and children being most vulnerable.

Understanding the types of food systems interventions that foster women’s empowerment and the types of women that are able to benefit from different interventions is important for development policy.

In rural West Africa, the rate of out-of-school children is high and delayed entry to primary school is common, particularly for girls.

Agricultural development projects increasingly include women’s empowerment and gender equality among their objectives, but efforts to evaluate their impact have been stymied by the lack of comparable measures.