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Questions Bihar Odisha Uttar Pradesh

Hunger Nutrition Hunger Nutrition Hunger Nutrition

To what extent are state government policy preferences reflected in budget expenditures?

39% 43% 56% 50%# _{56% 55%}

How strong or weak would you, in general, characterise the state government’s absolute (in money terms) budget expenditures on hunger and nutrition?

27% 29% 47% 42% 37% 38%

How sensitive are state government budget expenditures on hunger and undernutrition to electoral cycles?

45% 58%## _{66% 63% 24% 47%}###

How sensitive are state government budget expenditures on hunger and undernutrition to emergencies/disasters?

41% 54%# _{59% 60% 43% 65%}###

How well has the state government developed transparent financial mechanisms for earmarked funding?

34% 33% 44% 42% 38% 38%

Notes: Statistical significance of the difference between hunger score and nutrition score based on paired sample T tests: # at 10% level; ## at 5% level; ### at 1% level.

Further to examining mean scores across the hunger/nutrition divide, we also examined whether the inter-state differences implied by experts’ responses were in fact statistically significant. Annex D contains the results of these tests, which were based on a series of one- way ANOVA tests examining whether the mean scores for each question were different among states. The annex covers two types of tests: (1) one overall ANOVA test where the null hypothesis was that at least one pair out of the three pairs of states had statistically different means (this is an F-test); and (2) three pair-wise post hoc tests (Bihar–UP, Odisha– Bihar, and UP–Odisha) where the null hypothesis was that the mean scores of two states were equal. The annex tabulates the significance level of each of these four tests. The results were separated into hunger and nutrition elements when the data permitted it.

The ANOVA test results for intra-state differences in the five questions in Table 4.12 are reported in the first five rows in Annex D. The ANOVA result for these five questions shows that intra-state differences are more pronounced for spending on hunger than for spending on nutrition: the responses for three out of the five questions are significant at the 5 per cent level for hunger. Further, the post hoc tests for these three questions (Annex D) identify that the intra-state differences are due to Odisha scoring higher than Bihar for these three questions. In what follows we will discuss only post hoc results; first, because they are more interesting and relevant for the present discussion and, second, because the overall F-test results is often just a summary of the post hoc tests. In other words the F-test is almost always significant only if at least one post hoc test is significant.

In terms of public policy, the experts identified some relatively strong aspects and some weaker aspects of commitment to reduce hunger and undernutrition. Table 4.13 presents average scores for each of the policy-related questions that were asked and organises these by state as well as according to whether they related to hunger or nutrition. The averages of these numbers suggest that Bihar has the weakest commitment (an average score for all questions is 42 per cent – fairly weak) and Odisha the strongest commitment (47 per cent – moderate) from among the three states. The ANOVA results in Annex D shed more light on this inter-state comparison. These results, in particular the F-tests, identify three public policy aspects that diverge significantly across states: (1) priority given by state governments to hunger and nutrition; (2) national and state government (vertical) coordination; and (3) the use of knowledge and evidence in policy.

Let us pay closer attention to the above three aspects that show significant variation between states. In regard to the priority given to hunger and nutrition, though Odisha (42 per cent) scores stronger than both Bihar (37 per cent) and Uttar Pradesh (27 per cent), all three states are fairly weak in this regard. This reflects that in many cases states implement GoI schemes and there is a risk that ownership of these centrally driven schemes is low in the states. Looking at vertical coordination, the post hoc results in Annex D suggest that this result is driven by the fairly strong commitment in Uttar Pradesh in contrast to moderate commitment in Bihar and Odisha. Regarding the use of knowledge and evidence in policy the result is driven by Bihar’s weak commitment, which contrasts significantly with

‘moderate’/‘fairly weak’ commitment in other two states.

Expert opinion scores in Table 4.13, when averaged across all three states, suggest that the development of budget lines is the strongest aspect (average of 58 per cent) in all three states and the lack of credible incentives is the weakest (13 per cent) aspect of commitment. At individual state level these strengths and weaknesses differ. In the case of Bihar,

surprisingly, the strongest aspect is cross-agency coordination28 _{(H: 75 per cent, N: 65 per}

cent), for Odisha it is development strategies (H: 63 per cent, N: 61 per cent) and for Uttar Pradesh it is vertical coordination (H: 67 per cent, N: 68 per cent). Though the experts’ observations seem to suggest that there are differences between average scores for hunger policy and nutrition policy, only one of these differences is statistically significant at the 5 per cent level: Bihar’s state government seems to give more attention to prioritising hunger (39 per cent – fairly weak) than to nutrition (33 per cent – fairly weak).

We further find that state governments’ efforts to enhance financial and administrative capacities to act on hunger and undernutrition are fairly weak. All three state governments also show very weak commitment to putting in place a regime of credible incentives. The experts’ scores on credible incentives averaged from 10 to 18 per cent (Table 4.13).

Table 4.13 Indian public policy: aspects of stronger commitment to reduce