Nutrition-sensitive

Reports

Photo of three men, six women, one girl, and three infants. They are standing outside a brick building, smiling at the camera. Caption: "Proud Mawa beneficiares"

The SPRING Project, together with select nongovernmental organizations operating in Zambia, conducted a technical review of three agriculture and food security activities that have...

Galleries

Photo of a woman smiling and holding up a piece of paper in front of a group.

In May, SPRING worked with KAWOLOR project staff in Senegal to share the Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture Training Resource Package.

Photo of two people posing with a large plaque. USAID Health Project Management Specialist Aisha Zhorobekova presents the BFHI certification plaque to Abdulbaki Yrysbekov, Director of Karakul General Medicine Practice Center in Jalalabad oblast.

USAID, Ministry of Health, and oblast government representatives attended the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) award ceremony for three facilities in Jalalabad on January 31, 2018....

Photo: SPRING/Senegal nutrition advisor, Mariam Sy, speaks to guests about SPRING’s accomplishments in nutrition, gender and hygiene at one of the stands set up to showcase project achievements.

SPRING/Senegal organized two close-out ceremonies to mark the end of 18 months of implementation – one in Kaolack and one in Dakar. Both ceremonies showcased the project’s work in nutrition...

Training Materials

Illustrated image of a man and woman walking near a stream.

These materials were created specifically for the SPRING nutrition-sensitive agriculture training in Odisha, India based upon the Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture Training package.

Thumbnail image of the Session Guide: a group photo of a family smiling.

This is Session Seven of seven that are included in the Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture Training Res

Photo of a woman holding an infant

This is Session Six of seven that are included in the Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture Training Resou

Photo of a man harvesting in a field

This is Session Five of seven that are included in the Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture Training Reso

Photo of a woman smiling in front of a lake

This is Session Four of seven that are included in the Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture Training Reso

Photo of a woman selling food at a market stall

This session introduces the learner to essential concepts in agriculture and food systems.

Photo of mother and child looking at nutrition chart

This session creates the foundation in nutritional principles and practices that is necessary to understand the root causes of malnutrition.

Photo of a man and woman working in a field

This session lays the foundation for why nutrition-sensitive agriculture is important for a range of stakeholders working in livelihoods, food security, economic growth, nutrition, and...

News

Photo of a group of women.

SPRING presented at the 1,000 Days Advocacy Working Group Meeting on six years of work highlighting gender equity for improved nutrition.

Photo of a man pointing to a board with many brightly colored written cards posted.

SPRING’s two-day workshop trained FAIR project implementing partners in nutrition-sensitive agriculture.

A graphic representation of a woman cleaning a yard of animal feces, disposing of the feces responsibly, and washing her hands with a tippy tap.

SPRING co-facilitated a session on implementation science with GAIN and the Society for Implementation Science in Nutrition at GWU’s Global Health MiniU in September 2017.

Photo of farmers, close up, working in the ground with his hands, behind him, two men are tilling the ground, tools held high to swing down into the grass. Photo credit: Feed the Future.

Key stakeholders explore SPRING’s newest training, Accelerating Behavior Change for Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture.

Photo: SPRING/Senegal’s  Agriculture/Markets Officer, Mamadou Ba, holds up a photo of one of the cereal processing units that SPRING helped install in communities.

SPRING/Senegal organized two close-out ceremonies in Kaolack and in Dakar to showcase 18 months of implementation in the areas of nutrition-sensitive agriculture, SBCC, gender, and WASH.

A man and woman stand in front of the camera. The woman looks ahead, the man looks and smiles at their baby in his arms

The group visited one of SPRING’s partner radio stations, micro-gardens, and chicken coops, and observed a community video dissemination.

Photo showing the learning event in which partners from the Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Health, UNICEF, USAID, Plan International, Catholic Relief Services, PSI, US Peace Corps and representatives of the Guinean press were on hand for demonstrations of various resources.

As SPRING closes its program in Guinea, key partners from the governmental and non-governmental sectors were invited to learn more about the program’s successes and legacy.

One man kneels and looks at the screen of a video camera. Two women and two men lean over his shoulder to also see the screen.

SPRING shared its SPRING/Guinea Social and Behavior Change (SBC) approaches at the ICTforAg 2017 conference during a session entitled "Multi-Channel Communications in Hard-to-Reach Places."

Poster with the name of the conference and the conference schedule

SPRING shared findings and recommendations at the 2017 International Health Economics Association World Congress in Boston on how to ensure nutrition policy translates to financing and...

A woman holding her baby stands in a dusty field.

SPRING/Ghana is maximizing chances for achieving more results from its multi-sectoral nutrition programs by prioritizing implementation in LEAP 1,000 communities.

Series

Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture Training Resource Package

The SPRING Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture Training Resource Package is a collection of our very best training work, including presentations, activities, handouts, and session guides.

Activities

Filming a group of women practicing healthy food preparation

In India, SPRING works with the UPAVAN project to promote improved health practices through disseminations of community-made videos.

Events

Woman and man in field. Credit: Cambodia HARVEST

While there are many opportunities to make agriculture more nutrition-sensitive, understanding how to influence behavior to address the indirect causes of malnutrition can be a challenge.

Job Aids and Tools

Farmers drying groundnuts pods on a tarpaulin – Yendi District

This instructional-based training video was developed by SPRING/Ghana as a job aid for agriculture extension agents (AEAs) to engage groundnut farmers in northern Ghana on some selected...

Pages

Resource Review Summaries

As the need to integrate nutrition outcomes into our food systems becomes ever more evident, valuing and measuring nutritional quality of the outputs of agricultural production is essential...

Nutrition‐sensitive interventions to improve overall diet quality are increasingly needed to improve maternal and child health. This study demonstrates the feasibility of a structured...

This synthesis document accompanies three case studies carried out by ENN in 2017 in Senegal, Nepal, and Kenya to document nutrition-sensitive and multi-sector program experiences with a...

What do food and market system approaches to development have in common? On February 22, the webinar, “Balancing the Systems: Making Food and Market Systems Work for Nutrition,” hosted by...

Over the past 50 years, understandings of the best ways to combat malnutrition among women and children globally have changed, along with the technology that exists to fight it. The IMMANA-...

In highland Bolivia, a three-year nutrition-sensitive agricultural intervention was carried out with rural families in which chicken rearing was promoted in order to increase egg...

Keywords: Nutrition-sensitive, Agriculture
Location: Bolivia

To gain a better understanding of how agriculture interventions can contribute to improved nutrition, SPRING partnered with USAID and nongovernmental organizations operating in Zambia to...

Keywords: Agriculture, Nutrition-sensitive
Location: Zambia

Part of a regional series on sustainable food systems and diets, FAO’s Europe and Central Asia-focused symposium took place in Budapest from December 4-5, 2017. The symposium objectives...

When deciding how to design or whether to fund a nutrition-sensitive agricultural intervention, we need to know the potential scope of impact. How many people will we reach? This blog...

Nutrition-sensitive interventions to improve overall diet quality are increasingly needed to improve maternal and child health. This study demonstrates feasibility of a structured process...

The recently launched ATONU tool can help development practitioners identify and select nutrition sensitive agriculture interventions for their projects. Beginning with the identification...

In their latest report, Action Against Hunger promotes agroecology in food security and nutrition, rural and agriculture development, and climate change adaptation and mitigation to ensure...

Continuing a series on practical tools and approaches to address enabling environment constraints to food security, this Feed the Future blog examines the World Bank’s Enabling the Business...

In this interview with Kristin O'Planick and Sally Abbott of USAID, learn how the Leveraging Economic Opportunities (LEO) and the Strengthening Partnerships, Results, and Innovations in...

Although there is a consensus regarding the need to invest in nutrition-sensitive programs, the current global evidence base regarding the nutritional impacts of nutrition-sensitive...

On March 16, Domitille Kauffmann from FAO’s Nutrition and Food Systems Division delivered a training to strengthen capacities of development practitioners to integrate nutrition into their...

The FSN Forum of the FAO invites the participants of the FSN Forum to read the discussion paper on "Inclusive value chains for sustainable agriculture and scaled up food security and...

The objectives of this online course are to understand the definitions of food systems, value chains, food security, nutrition security and their interconnectedness; be able to apply...

Rural advisory services are a possible channel for improving nutrition in rural communities because of their ability to improve household practices through consistent service provision and...

Sheryl L. Hendriks of the University of Pretoria comments on designing food systems, and an expanding understanding of nutrition that considers hidden hunger and the food environment. She...

Secure Nutrition and the World Bank Group hosted author and IFPRI Senior Researcher Dr. Harold Alderman to outline the logic for prioritizing nutrition-sensitive programs in the current...

How can extension build on its "core competencies" in improving household food security to lay the foundation for better nutrition? This discussion paper explores the conceptual linkages...

Liberia continues to face high levels of malnutrition, especially stunting among children under five. Stunting is partly due to the lack of information about growing and consuming...

The Compendium of Actions for Nutrition (CAN) was developed in consultation with United Nations partner agencies and is a key contribution towards achieving the objectives of the UN Network...

Using nationally representative data from three African countries, this analysis reveals little evidence of a relationship between nutritional status and the degree of agricultural...

This compendium has been designed to support officers responsible for designing nutrition-sensitive food and agriculture investments in selecting appropriate indicators to monitor how these...

This one-day learning event provided a forum where both nutrition and agriculture specialists could feed into discussions and share their ideas and experiences on nutrition-sensitive...

This online course illustrates the linkages between agriculture, food systems, and nutrition. Starting from two realistic scenarios, the course describes benefits and opportunities for...

A 4-year longitudinal investigation reveals that a Heifer International intervention in Nepal was associated with significantly improved child anthropometry (related to the duration of...

Keywords: Agriculture, Nutrition-sensitive
Location: Nepal

In these short videos, World Bank experts describe how they integrated nutrition-sensitive agriculture activities into their work. Each video provides concrete examples of what drives the...

Designing and disseminating technologies through Agricultural Extension Services in a gender-responsive and nutrition-sensitive way can help extend the benefits of technologies like...

A growing body of evidence shows strong connections between poor sanitation and stunting, and provides a basis for this paper’s focus on achieving better nutrition outcomes from both the...

The concept of “nutrition-sensitive agriculture” designates a role for agriculture in providing food security – access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food for all people at all times.

Reducing stunting in South Asia requires the coordination of nutrition-sensitive and nutrition-specific interventions, especially measures that lead to improved nutritional status for...

The 2013 Lancet nutrition series argues that in order to achieve global targets for reducing undernutrition, there needs to be a multi-sectoral approach to include scaled-up, proven...

A reliable estimate of nutrition spending is critical for effective planning to address the interrelated causes of undernutrition. This study builds on the definition of nutrition-sensitive...

This facilitator’s guide has been prepared for public, private, and NGO extension providers to strengthen their capacity to address gender in a transformative manner and to integrate...

The third in a series of reports focused on the future of food, this latest release from the World Bank focuses on how the food system can deliver improved nutrition and health for better...

This special edition is rich with field experiences and relevant peer-reviewed research that provide insights into the current state of knowledge and action for nutrition-sensitive...

This workshop launched the second phase of the IFPRI-led Gender, Agriculture and Assets Projects (GAAP2), in Nairobi, Kenya. GAAP2 aims to develop measurements for women’s empowerment in...

The agriculture-nutrition impact pathways are complex and interlocking, and agricultural interventions may have negative impacts on nutrition just as they may have positive impacts. This...

In this research study, similar barriers to leveraging agriculture for nutrition were identified by stakeholders in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda. These include a narrow focus on solely...

Keywords: Nutrition-sensitive
Location: Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda

This blog discusses the COP21 observer and side events on climate, agriculture, and nutrition. The Paris Agreement recognized food production, food security, and ending hunger, however, it...

Nutrition-sensitive agriculture, as explored in this article, seems to exist more as a term than as an actionable concept. The article examines results of a survey and related literature to...

This report details the progress and results of the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) movement. Since its inception in 2010, 30 SUN country national budgets have been analyzed for nutrition-...

FAO just released a manual for program planners of nutrition-sensitive agriculture programs covering the first phases of the programming cycle (situation appraisal, program design, and...

This webinar highlighted the importance of an integrated nutrition-sensitive social protection system. Field examples are from Bangladesh, Zambia, Myanmar, and Nigeria.

What should be the role of agricultural colleges and higher education institutions in promoting nutrition sensitive agriculture? This online discussion shared experiences in integrating...

This video by Dr. Anna Herforth discusses the pathways through which agriculture can support good nutrition, indicators that can be used to measure agriculture’s impact on nutrition, and...

This online training course on pathways and program design developed by USAID Global Health and the Bureau for Food Security introduces professionals to nutrition-sensitive agricultural...

The impact of agriculture investments on nutrition was shared in this research-to-practice seminar featuring the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Nutrition. Presenters discussed their key...

Keywords: Nutrition-sensitive
Location: Africa, Asia

This report reviews two Feed the Future projects in Guatemala and emphasizes the importance of increasing the nutrition sensitivity across all stages of value chains. The report maps out...

Keywords: Nutrition-sensitive
Location: Guatemala

Abstracts for the 2015 Integrated Nutrition Conference will be accepted through July 3, 2015. The conference will focus on the integration of nutrition-sensitive programs across multiple...

Nutrition-sensitive program designers and advisors are currently needed to assist with many multisectoral efforts underway. Presenters from FAO, IFAD, IFPRI, and Tufts University shared...

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) hosted an intensive training at its Rome headquarters in July 2014, with the goal of ‘growing’ a pool of experts able to capably...

This webinar featured the authors of USAID’s Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Strategy outlining key aspects of the strategy, focusing on its practical relevance to agricultural development...

June’s Ag2Nut Community of Practice monthly call featuring a presentation on USAID's 2014-2025 Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Strategy. Mike Manske, Nutrition Advisor in USAID's Nutrition...

This report examines the relationship between agriculture and nutrition in developing countries, focusing on how nutrition is currently prioritised within agricultural policy frameworks,...

Keywords: Agriculture, Nutrition-sensitive
Location: Africa

ACF International has newly released 3 case studies based on ACF innovative nutrition-sensitive interventions, in Liberia, Guinea and Pakista that complete the 3 previously released in 2012...

This overview from the Maternal and Young Child Nutrition Security Initiative in Asia outlines linkages between nutrition and a variety of development sectors. The brief re-examines the...

Building on the Nutrition-Specific and Nutrition-Sensitive Interventions to Accelerate Progress (see above), this brief delves deeper into agriculture-nutrition linkages, including a look...