Resilient Economic Development Gains (RED) Project Final Evaluation (Malawi, 2025)

The Resilient Economic Development Gains (RED) Project, funded by Save the Children Italy, was a five-year project aimed at improving the resilience of communities in Zomba District, Malawi, from July 2019 to June 2024. The project primarily focused on enhancing economic stability and nutritional wellbeing, particularly for children, youth, and women of childbearing age. It targeted 25 Group Village Heads and impacted 2,596 individuals across 1,000 households. The project aimed to achieve the following objectives: increasing household income and expenditure on children; improving diets through sustainable food systems; and protecting economic and nutrition pathways against shocks. The project was structured in two phases, with the first phase emphasizing capacity building and the second phase expanding interventions despite challenges like the COVID-19 pandemic and natural disasters. The project adopted the randomized control trial (RCT) approach to measure the effectiveness and impact of the project interventions. The key assessments that were conducted included the baseline in 2020, midline in 2022, and endline in 2024. All these assessments were done by Bocconi University.

This final evaluation was done by Save the Children R & E Unit Staff and was commissioned to fill the gaps in information and address the research questions that could not be addressed by the RCT. The end-line RCT and final evaluations were implemented sequentially starting with the end-line evaluation and then later final evaluation as a follow-up.