SPRING Around the Web

This article explores SPRING's experience testing the assumption that household incomes increase, nutrition – or, at least, diet – improves, right? After all, food is a basic requirement and logic suggests that food-insecure households will put extra income towards additional food, resulting in better diets. At least, that’s the theory. In practice, however, the link is not that straightforward and when higher incomes do lead to better diets, it is most often not right away.

Adolescence is a critical period of biological and psychosocial growth and development that marks a unique stage between childhood and adulthood. The nutrition of the world’s 1.2 billion adolescents, aged 10-19, will have a profound impact on their current and future health and well-being—as well as on future generations. IFPRI's Sunny Kim, Deanna Olney and Marie Ruel make the case to join the Call to Action on Adolescent Nutrition

To achieve global targets for reducing malnutrition, experts in the food and agricultural sectors need to pay more attention to how their work impacts nutrition in general. That is one of the key takeaways of USAID’s Strengthening Partnerships, Results and Innovations in Nutrition Globally (SPRING) project, which has been working for the last seven years to bring together the disparate worlds of agriculture and nutrition. This intereview with Heather Danton, the director of food security and nutrition at SPRING, includes this and other insights gained over the course of project implmentation. 

Iron supplementation has been the traditional response, but experts say there is a need for a wider range of coordinated interventions. This article includes perspectives from SPRING's nutrition experts on multi-sectoral approaches to effectively address anemial prevention and control. 

For low-literacy populations with limited access to mass-media, communicating about improved nutrition practices is often achieved through drawings that demonstrate behaviors that will contribute to improved nutrition outcomes. SPRING partnered with UNICEF to build an online repository of high-quality IYCF images that can be downloaded and modified to help save time and money. In this post, SPRING web guru Daniel Cothran describes how SPRING built the IYCF Image Bank with limited resources in the open-source Drupal platform with a small team and budget. 

How does one design an agricultural project — or “activity” in USAID language — for nutrition? When pursuing improved nutrition, do you give up part of the economic growth objective, or can you tackle both at the same time without sacrificing the other? And how might you pursue the latter? This blog explores observations made from SPRING's work with with three development activities in Zambia, namely that both food security and market-led approaches are necessary and appropriate for nutrition-sensitive agriculture.

When it comes to household responsibilities, heavy workloads can have negative effects on a woman’s access to income, food security, and the health and nutritional status of their families. This blog delves into ways SPRING is encouraging couples in Senegal to be gender champions by sharing the burden.

SPRING was in the "sweet spot" of a public-private partnership with USAID and Hershey’s, providing critical contracting support to procure specialized nut-roasting equipment and training local farmers to produce safe groundnuts, the primary ingredient in food supplements for Ghanaian school children.

In northern Ghana, SPRING’s farmer field schools promoted women’s empowerment by training female farmers in good agronomic practices that increase groundnut yields and make them safer to consume. These improved practices help women grow enough groundnuts to both feed their families and sell the excess in the market for a profit.

Micronutrient powders can deliver vital micronutrients to communities with limited access to diverse foods. This blog describes SPRING’s efforts to understand the effectiveness of the different ways micronutrient powders are distributed through the story of Rahimu, an 8-month-old child from rural Uganda.

SPRING developed a methodology to analyze planned and actual spending for nutrition from a government perspective, including system diagnostics to inform future monitoring. It involves nine steps over three phases (collection, validation and analysis). This blog describes how the method was tested and refined in pilots in Uganda and Nepal.

SPRING examined existing communication platforms in Northern Ghana to better understand how nutrition-sensitive messaging can be integrated into agricultural information systems. This review found that these agriculture information systems offer several opportunities to improve their impact on nutrition, many of which may apply to other contexts.

Malnutrition continues to be one of the greatest challenges to development worldwide, but community health workers are in a unique position to help. This blog, developed as part of a the 2017 Institutionalizing Community Health Conference, describes how SPRING is helping to raise the status and quality of nutrition services provided by community health workers.

Agriculture is nutrition-sensitive when it tackles issues at the root of malnutrition rather than just food production. SPRING’s Director of Food Security and Nutrition describes our efforts to strengthen understanding and best practices for nutrition-sensitive agriculture, first understanding how effective programs work and then sharing what we have learned.

This blog highlights SPRING’s rapid launch of our short-term, high-impact program in three regions of Senegal to improve child and maternal nutrition. Through the story of Thiane Dramé, readers learn targeted interventions are increasing food production and providing a more diverse diet for their families.

New findings from a HarvestPlus-commissioned review challenge the prevailing assumption that 50% of anemia is attributable to iron deficiency. Experts discussed how these findings should be interpreted and acted upon through the SPRING-supported Accelerated Reduction Effort on Anaemia community of practice. This blog captures key takeaways.

Agriculture plays a critical role in providing nutritious food and in addressing the underlying causes of malnutrition. Feed the Future’s investments in SPRING have revealed several opportunities for agriculture to contribute to improved nutrition, especially for those most at risk. This blog and infographic outline five actions that can be taken now.

Though SPRING’s efforts have largely focused on the first 1,000 days between pregnancy and a child’s second birthday, our experience makes it clear that efforts must expand to include women—especially adolescent girls—before they become pregnant.

Part two of a two part journey with SPRING’s Kristina Granger. On her son’s second birthday, she looks back on their first 1,000 days and her experience with breastfeeding, pumping, and complementary feeding. As a social behavior change communications practitioner, her personal experience gave Kristina even more respect for the mothers and communities SPRING works with as they overcome barriers to make breastfeeding a reality for their children.

This photo blog follows Rani, a health worker in Bangladesh whose training from a SPRING farmer nutrition school has given her the knowledge to advise her neighbors, especially pregnant women and mothers, on how to improve nutrition intake. Rani also shows people in the village how to use tippy taps to avoid getting sick and spreading germs to others.

SPRING celebrates World Breastfeeding Week with mothers around the world by taking a look at the important role of breastfeeding in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

This photo blog follows Basanti Majhi, a farmer, a wife, and a mother living near India’s eastern coast, where she spends her days working in the fields and caring for her family. After adopting improved nutrition and hygiene practices that she learned from watching a SPRING community video, Basanti was featured in a video about breastfeeding and is now a nutrition star in her community.

Heather Danton, lead of SPRING’s Agriculture to Nutrition team, reflects on her 30 years of experience in nutrition-sensitive agriculture. She discusses how solving complex problems on nutrition and agriculture can also save lives.

In an era that seems to value “innovation” and “game-changers,” we ignore proven practices, approaches, and solutions at our peril. SPRING Project Director Carolyn Hart makes the case for the unique role breastfeeding plays in good nutrition in the first 1,000 days and consequently, achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.  

GAIN, USAID, and SPRING facilitated an online discussion on shaping the future of nutrition social and behavior change communication at scale. SPRING’s Ashley Aakesson speaks about the multiple models of scaling, discussing trade-offs, costs, and the decision to use a certain social and behavior change communication intervention.

Like any national challenge, sufficient, sustained funding is needed to address undernutrition. This blog looks at how SPRING is tracking nutrition-specific and -sensitive activities over three fiscal years in Uganda and Nepal to explore if and how policies translate into changes in nutrition funding commitments in each country.

In the 10 years prior to 2011, anemia rates decreased by surprising numbers for women and children in Uganda, but sustaining the momentum requires understanding the reasons why anemia rates decreased. In 2012, SPRING worked with the Government of Uganda to review demographic health survey analyses, revealing multiple factors for the impressive decline. SPRING discusses the outcomes and the steps forward.

SPRING partnered with Digital Green  to test the feasibility of adapting a video-based approach to promote high-impact maternal, infant, and young child nutrition maternal, infant, and young child nutrition and hygiene practices. A webinar on December 17, 2013 examined this methodology.

World Food Day is a reminder that we need to continue developing new strategies to ensure sustainable food systems. SPRING’s farmer field schools in Bangladesh are one example. For stay-at-home-mother, Rajopa, joining a farmer field schools gave her training on nutrition and hygiene and helped increase her access to a diverse selection of nutrient-rich vegetables, fish, and poultry to help feed her four young children.

SPRING participated in World Breastfeeding Week 2013 by providing technical support to the Government of Nigeria as they launch a National Infant and Young Child Feeding campaign to improve community health worker training.