Resilience and child malnutrition in Mali
This article in the Food Security journal explores the link between resilience and child malnutrition in Africa. Using detailed survey data from Mali, this paper examines whether the resilience capacity of households is a determinant of child malnutrition. After estimating the Resilience Capacity Index (RCI) by using a Structural Equation Model, an instrumental variable approach was followed. The impact of resilience capacity on child malnutrition was estimated by using the institutional presence of the state as an instrument for the RCI. Furthermore, the analysis captures differences in the relationship between resilience and the institutional presence of the state across regions. The empirical evidence presented here demonstrates that higher resilience capacity is associated with both lower probability of having malnourished children and a lower number of malnourished children in the household.