These examples share a common theme—the interventions studied aim to change the way spouses interact around the production and allocation of goods, to encourage them towards greater intrahousehold cooperation in areas that Doss and Meinzen-Dick (2015) might identify as “collective action problems.” Doss and Meinzen-Dick engage with the natural resource management (NRM) literature to rethink what enables household members to reach cooperative outcomes (not necessarily efficient ones), and how interventions can strengthen collective action at the intrahousehold level for shared gains around household public goods. This perspective leads to the consideration of how interventions might affect the _processes_ of intrahousehold cooperation, in addition to considering how they affect the resources that each household member brings to intrahousehold negotiations. In other words, in what ways do NSA interventions that target both spouses affect _how_ household decisions are made?

Studies on targeting that focus on asymmetric information within households foreground the relative information resources that spouses bring to intrahousehold negotiations and decisions. This study adds to the literature by providing a complementary explanation of why and how the targeting of NSA extension programs matters. Drawing on female and male farmers’ explanations of why they value dual viewership and building on Doss and Meinzen-Dick’s (2015) focus on collective action, our findings suggest a need for greater attention to how interventions affect processes of intrahousehold collaboration for achieving improved nutrition outcomes.

# 3. Methods and context

This paper is based on qualitative data collected in two rounds in rural Ethiopia. Formative qualitative research was conducted in May 2019, which informed the design and analysis of the subsequent two rounds of research this paper is based on. The formative phase helped the research team gain a better understanding of how the agricultural extension system functions in practice. It included 34 interviews of officials involved in agricultural extension and 36 observations of extension activities. Round one of the primary qualitative data collection took place during August-September 2021, and round two took place during May-June 2022. Both rounds of qualitative data collection were embedded in an impact evaluation of a video-based NSA intervention that is part of the second phase of Ethiopia’s Agricultural Growth Project (AGP2). AGP2 aims to increase agricultural productivity and commercialization of smallholder farmers in Ethiopia through a variety of interventions. Among other things, AGP2’s goals include strengthening the implementation of nutrition sensitive interventions in the agriculture sector with a focus on improving the consumption of diversified diets.

Digital Green, an international non-governmental organization, has an ongoing partnership with Ethiopia’s Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Digital Green trains the ministry’s extension agents at the woreda (district) level to produce and screen localized videos that are shown through their existing extension system. Under AGP2, Digital Green worked with the ministry to expand into 20 selected woredas with a modified curriculum to include agriculture and nutrition information. Dissemination of videos was done jointly by the agricultural and health extension workers.

The impact evaluation seeks to assess the impact of leveraging video-enabled extension to improve nutritional outcomes by diversifying and improving dietary consumption through the take-up and adoption of new practices, and changes in household behaviors. For the impact evaluation, a total of 200 kebeles (clustered villages) in 20 selected AGP2 woredas were randomized into three experimental treatment arms: 4