Zusammenfassung:
In 2015, Southern Africa experienced a drought that affected approximately 30 million people across seven countries. Using a nationally representative household panel survey data set and a remotely sensed measure of drought intensity during the 2015-16 farming season, we rigorously estimate the shortterm effects of the drought on food insecurity and child malnutrition in Malawi, and the mitigating effect of a humanitarian transfer programme. We capitalize on the coincidence of the drought with the roll-out of the 2016 survey wave to examine how its impacts on household dietary patterns, food insecurity coping mechanisms, and child nutritional outcomes evolved over the year as households depleted their food stocks. Our fixed effects models reveal significant adverse impacts on dietary quality, food security, and acute child malnutrition, particularly soon after the failed harvest. The dietary quality and nutritional outcomes of drought- and non-drought-exposed households converged later in the year. Humanitarian transfers made in the aftermath of the drought had positive but insignificant mitigation effects on diets and acute child malnutrition.