Women's empowerment

News

SPRING Shares Experiences with Hemoglobin Measurement and Engaging Men for Nutrition at CORE Group

SPRING participated in the CORE Group Global Health Practitioner Conference, delivering a presentation on engaging men for improved nutrition, and sharing research on hemoglobin measurement...

Keywords: Anemia, Community media, Community, Women's empowerment, Micronutrient
Location: Sahel

SPRING Presents for International Women’s Day

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

Keywords: Adolescents, Agriculture, Gender, Communication, Nutrition-sensitive, Social and behavior change communication, Thousand days, Training, Women's empowerment

SPRING/Ghana Partners With Cash Transfer Program to Help Break the Cycle of Poverty

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

Keywords: Dietary diversity, Thousand days, Nutrition-sensitive, Women's empowerment
Location: Ghana

Supporting Fathers and Empowering Families in Ghana

Father-to-Father support groups encourage men to take an active role in the health and nutrition of their families.

Keywords: Community mobilization, Communication, Maternal, infant, and young child nutrition, Gender, Social and behavior change communication, Training, Women's empowerment
Location: Ghana

SPRING/Senegal Trains Partners to Use Cereal Processors to Alleviate Women’s Post-Harvest Workload

SPRING/Senegal trained six partner networks in Senegal on the technical and business elements of operating processing machines.

Keywords: Agriculture, Training, Women's empowerment
Location: Senegal

SPRING/Ghana Adopts VSLAs to Economically Empower Women

SPRING/Ghana uses VSLAs so mother-to-mother support groups can improve their economic status with savings and loans to meet immediate needs.

Keywords: Gender, Social and behavior change communication, Sustainability, Training, Women's empowerment
Location: Ghana

SPRING Promotes Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment during Producer Organization Training Series

SPRING/Senegal organized a workshop for representatives of partner networks to raise awareness on gender issues and promote men and women as partners in household decision-making for good...

Keywords: Double burden, Family planning, Gender, Integration, Malnutrition, Maternal nutrition, Multi-sector, Social and behavior change communication, Sustainability, Training, Women's empowerment
Location: Senegal

“Breastfeeding is a Source of Child Health” Campaign in Tash Kumyr

SPRING/Kyrgyz Republic and the Health Promotion Unit of Tash Kumyr town held an event on the importance of breastfeeding.

Keywords: Adolescents, Breastfeeding, Community mobilization, Complementary feeding, Dietary diversity, Mass media, Maternal nutrition, Maternal, infant, and young child nutrition, Infant and young child feeding, Social and behavior change communication, Thousand days, Women's empowerment
Location: Kyrgyz Republic

SPRING Celebrates International Women’s Day 2016

Happy #IWD2016! Learn how SPRING is empowering women through better nutrition.

Keywords: Women's empowerment, Adolescents, Anemia, Community media, Communication, Gender, Malnutrition, Mass media

Videos

Photo of a woman and children sitting on a blanket atop a dirt floor in front of a thatch covered area.

Community Video (Niger): Aidez vos Femmes pour le Bien de Tous - Help Your Wives for the Benefit of All

Men learn the importance of helping the women in housework.

Keywords: Community media, Women's empowerment
Location: Sahel, Niger

A woman, dressed in orange, checks on her chicken coops.

Community Video (Senegal): L’Aviculture Villageoise Améliorée

Ever since she has been using improved poultry production practices, Ndèye Khady has improved her family’s nutrition and her financial autonomy. She can now help her husband with household...

Keywords: Nutrition-specific, Women's empowerment
Location: Senegal

A man and woman stand at opposite sides of the frame. The couple is in the process of handing a chicken from the woman to the man.

Community Video (Burkina Faso): Comment L'Homme Peut Aider sa Femme à Faire de L'Elevage de Poules

Salamata’s neighbor has lost her rooster and is looking for it. She tells Salamata that she is impressed that Salamata's husband supports her in building and managing their chicken coop.

Keywords: Women's empowerment, Community media
Location: Burkina Faso, Sahel

Four women making a hajol for chicken rearing.

SPRING/Bangladesh Project Overview

This short video is a brief overview of the work that SPRING has been doing in Bangladesh since the project began in 2012.

Keywords: Water, sanitation, and hygiene, Handwashing, Farmer nutrition school, Women's empowerment
Location: Bangladesh

Job Aids and Tools

Training Manual on Gender and Nutrition

L’objectif global de cette activité est de renforcer les capacités des membres des réseaux de producteurs agricoles et des réseaux de santé/nutrition communautaires sur la thématique genre...

Keywords: Women's empowerment, Agriculture
Location: Senegal

Reports

A mother holds her baby up in the air. Both look happy. The mother smiles at the baby. The baby smiles at the camera.

Bangladesh: Final Country Report

SPRING implemented an innovative, scalable, and sustainable community-based, multi-channel, integrated nutrition program between April 2012 and June 2017 in Bangladesh.

Keywords: Agriculture, Anemia, Farmer nutrition school, Women's empowerment, Maternal, infant, and young child nutrition
Location: Bangladesh

The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index Results from SPRING/Bangladesh’s Farmer Nutrition Schools

The goal of the research was to measure empowerment among FNS beneficiaries and to compare the average WEAI score among different cohorts of the FNS program and, using the BIHS data, to...

Keywords: Farmer nutrition school, Women's empowerment, Gender
Location: Bangladesh

Success Stories

A groundnut farmer receives an award from a FFS instructor.

Empowering Women through Better Agriculture and Improved Yields

Then Ganabi joined a farmer field school (FFS) managed by SPRING, USAID’s multi-sectoral nutrition project. The FFS trainings teach farmers good agronomic practices, which make it easier to...

Keywords: Women's empowerment, Farmer nutrition school, Agriculture, Aflatoxin
Location: Ghana

Aminci Support Group members contribute money to a common pool of funds that can be used to increase the diversity of foods eaten by their families.

Women Empower Women to Improve Children’s Diets in Nigeria

To bring better infant and young child feeding practices to caregivers like the ones in Kajuru Ward, the FMOH—with support from UNICEF—is rolling out the C-IYCF Counselling Package. As part...

Keywords: Women's empowerment, Maternal nutrition, Maternal, infant, and young child nutrition, Infant and young child feeding, Breastfeeding
Location: Nigeria

From Decaying Peels to Delicious Produce

The creation and use of compost is just one of the many agricultural techniques taught to the local farmer nutrition school students in Bangladesh's Barisal and Khulna Divisions.

Keywords: Farmer nutrition school, Women's empowerment, Home gardens, Agriculture
Location: Bangladesh

Planting the Seeds of Better Nutrition in Mali

Denise Dougnon, 38, lives in Ama Iré village in the Mopti Region of Mali with her husband, two children, two sisters-in-law, and a brother-in-law. A graduate of the local (FNS) administered...

Keywords: Farmer nutrition school, Women's empowerment, Training, Dietary diversity
Location: Mali

Galleries

Participants and trainers pose for a group photo.

SPRING/Senegal Cereal Transformation Unit Training

From May 4-8, 2017, SPRING/Senegal trained six partner networks in Senegal on the technical and business elements of operating machinery that can be used to lower the burden of post-harvest...

Keywords: Women's empowerment, Agriculture, Dietary diversity, Nutrition-sensitive, Gender, Training
Location: Senegal

Actors animatedly play their roles in the sketch by raising their arms and with pained expressions on their faces.

SPRING/Senegal at World Malaria Day Event

On World Malaria Day 2017, SPRING/Senegal organized a social mobilization event in Dinguiraye Commune with our partner, APROFES, and Senegal’s Unit for the Fight Against Malnutrition (CLM...

Keywords: Community mobilization, Gender, Handwashing, Women's empowerment
Location: Senegal

SPRING/Senegal Raises Awareness of Gender Issues

SPRING/Senegal organized a workshop for representatives of partner networks to raise awareness on gender issues and promote men and women as partners in household decision-making for good...

Keywords: Gender, Social and behavior change communication, Sustainability, Training, Women's empowerment
Location: Senegal

In Pictures: “Breastfeeding is a Source of Child Health” Campaign in Tash Kumyr

SPRING/Kyrgyz Republic and the Health Promotion Unit of Tash Kumyr town held an event on the importance of breastfeeding.

Concept Testing Tailors Community Videos to Local Context in Two Regions in Niger

SPRING and Digital Green used concept testing to gather community input to nutrition and hygiene focused videos in two regions in Niger.

Keywords: Breastfeeding, Community media, Complementary feeding, Dietary diversity, Gender, Handwashing, Infant and young child feeding, Maternal nutrition, Maternal, infant, and young child nutrition, Nutrition-sensitive, Family planning, Nutrition-specific, Social and behavior change communication, Thousand days, Training, Water, sanitation, and hygiene, Women's empowerment
Location: Niger

SPRING Staff Pledge for Gender Parity on International Women's Day 2016

Women are at the heart of our work to improve nutrition. In this collection of photos, SPRING staff from around the world are celebrating International Women's Day 2016 and pledging to take...

Keywords: Gender, Women's empowerment
Location: Ghana, Senegal, Uganda

Training Materials

Farmer Nutrition School Technical Guide

Farmer Nutrition School (FNS) is a community-based learning approach that promotes the Essential Nutrition Actions (ENA) and the Essential Hygiene Actions (EHA) by teaching the production...

Keywords: Farmer nutrition school, Women's empowerment, Nutrient-dense crops
Location: Bangladesh

Activities

Concept Testing Tailors Community Videos to Local Context in Two Regions in Niger

SPRING and Digital Green gathered community input to nutrition and hygiene focused videos in two villages in Niger.

Keywords: Breastfeeding, Community media, Complementary feeding, Dietary diversity, Family planning, Gender, Handwashing, Infant and young child feeding, Malnutrition, Maternal nutrition, Maternal, infant, and young child nutrition, Nutrition-sensitive, Nutrition-specific, Social and behavior change communication, Thousand days, Water, sanitation, and hygiene, Women's empowerment
Location: Niger

Events

Ag2Nut Community Call: Farm-level Pathways to Improved Nutritional Status: New Empirical Evidence from Africa and South Asia

In the December 2015 Ag2Nut call, the Community of Practice presented a synthesis of a set of eight new studies that empirically test, using data from Africa and South Asia, whether a...

Keywords: Dietary diversity, Malnutrition, Agriculture, Maternal, infant, and young child nutrition, Women's empowerment
Location: Online

The Role of Increased Income and Women’s Empowerment on Nutrition

The webinar on Thursday, April 30, 2015 unpacked how two agricultural livelihoods and food systems investments strive to improve household nutrition

Keywords: Women's empowerment, Agriculture
Location: Online

Resource Review Summaries

Review: Time Use As An Explanation For The Agri-Nutrition Disconnect? Evidence from Rural Areas in Low and Middle-Income Countries

Agricultural interventions may fail to improve nutritional outcomes if they do not take account of time constraints, particularly of rural women who spend a considerable portion of their...

Keywords: Agriculture, Women's empowerment

Can WFP’s Food Assistance for Assets Contribute to Women’s Empowerment and Nutrition?

In 2017, the United Nations World Food Program published a report on a five-country study on how WFP’s Food Assistance for Assets (FFA) work can contribute to empowering women and improving...

Keywords: Agriculture, Women's empowerment

“Men Are in Front at Eating Time, but Not When It Comes to Rearing the Chicken”: Unpacking the Gendered Benefits and Costs of Livestock Ownership in Kenya

Livestock development programs seek to amplify resilience in low-income communities but often fail to consider the costs to intended beneficiaries or the effect of prevailing gender norms...

Keywords: Agriculture, Gender, Women's empowerment
Location: Kenya

ICTs for Nutrition, Agriculture, and Time Use - Can We Do Better Than 24-hour Recall?

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-...

Keywords: Women's empowerment, Agriculture, Nutrition-sensitive
Location: Uganda

Using Qualitative Methods to Understand the Local Meaning of Women’s Empowerment in Ethiopia

This blog captures findings of a study that assessed how the strategies and interventions of the UN Joint Programme on accelerating progress towards the economic empowerment of rural women...

Keywords: Women's empowerment, Agriculture
Location: Ethiopia

Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture: What Have We Learned and Where Do We Go From Here?

Filling a need to provide empirical evidence on agriculture’s contribution to nutrition, IFPRI’s discussion paper reviews recent evidence (since 2014), including findings from impact...

Keywords: Agriculture, Women's empowerment, Food systems

Webinar: The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index – What Have We Learned?

The WEIA tool, launched in 2012, has now been rolled-out in 19 Feed the Future focus countries. This webinar provides an overview of the updated WEAI tool and takes stock of current...

Keywords: Women's empowerment, Agriculture

Caregiver Capabilities: A Hidden Link between Agriculture, Nutrition and Child Health (in the series Agriculture-Nutrition-Health linkages: Research in the African context)

Dr. Cynthia Matare lead the first of five installments in a joint webinar series from The ANH Academy and the African Nutrition Society exploring critical links between agriculture,...

Keywords: Agriculture, Women's empowerment
Location: Zambia

Guest Commentary – To Fight Malnutrition in Africa, Embed Nutrition in Agriculture Programs

Mercy Lung’aho, nutritionist for the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, grapples with the gap between food security and nutrition in Rwanda. While hunger has been reduced by...

Keywords: Agriculture, Women's empowerment
Location: Rwanda

Women's Empowerment Mainstreaming and Networking (WEMAN)

Women’s Empowerment Mainstreaming And Networking (WEMAN) is an initiative which focuses on gender mainstreaming in rural development with the objective of contributing to food and income...

Keywords: Agriculture, Gender, Women's empowerment

Empowering Women in Agriculture: Tools for Practitioners

Empowering women is a critical component to improving food security. But what does women's empowerment in agriculture look like and how can practitioners design activities to promote it?...

Keywords: Agriculture, Women's empowerment

How Clocks Helped Grow Half a Million Tons of Food

Why would talking about a clock help a family grow more food? In this guest blog, Emily Hillenbrand highlights the work of the Pathways program, which focuses on getting women farmers...

Keywords: Agriculture, Women's empowerment

Background Study on Empowering Women through Investment in Livestock Value Chains: A Pathway for Improving Maternal and Child Nutrition in Northern Kenya

Approaches that improve women’s engagement in livestock value chains and their impact on women’s empowerment and maternal and child nutrition (MCN) can be powerful in improving women’s and...

Keywords: Agriculture, Women's empowerment, Maternal, infant, and young child nutrition
Location: Kenya

Women’s Economic Empowerment Technical Briefs

This series of technical briefs provides an overview of key issues related to women’s economic empowerment: unpaid care work; engaging and working with men; and, promoting women’s...

Keywords: Agriculture, Women's empowerment

Pushing the Frontiers in Ag-Nutrition Methods and Metrics: IMMANA Round 1 Fellows Share Their Research

During this webinar, the inaugural round of fellows from the IMMANA program highlighted their research on developing new methodological approaches to guide agricultural interventions for...

Keywords: Agriculture, Food systems, Women's empowerment
Location: Tanzania, Uganda, Ghana, Zambia, Ethiopia, India

Women's Nutrition Through an Empowerment Lens

This webinar explored women's health and empowerment; critical factors that are frequently overlooked in agriculture and nutrition research. With the focus of interventions and studies so...

Keywords: Women's empowerment, Agriculture, Household consumption and expenditure surveys

The WEAI Intervention Guide and the Gender Integration Framework After Event Resources

The Intervention Guide for the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) is a resource to help USAID missions and implementers design interventions for the domains of empowerment...

Keywords: Women's empowerment, Social and behavior change communication, Gender, Agriculture

A 2-Year Integrated Agriculture and Nutrition Program Targeted to Mothers of Young Children in Burkina Faso Reduces Underweight among Mothers and Increases Their Empowerment: A Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial

This article aims to increase the evidence base around the benefits of integrated agriculture and nutrition programs for children’s health and nutrition outcomes. It presents the results of...

Keywords: Agriculture, Women's empowerment
Location: Burkina Faso

The Fight for Equality in Farming: International Women’s Day 2016 #IWD2016

To address the continuing injustices faced by women across the globe, this year’s theme for International Women’s Day (IWD) was “Planet 50-50 by 2030: Step It Up for Gender Equality.” This...

Keywords: Women's empowerment, Gender, Agriculture

Gender, Agriculture, and Assets Program Phase Two: Developing Project-Level Indicators to Measure Women’s Empowerment (GAAP 2 for pro-WEAI)

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...

Keywords: Agriculture, Women's empowerment, Nutrition-sensitive

Bringing Agriculture and Nutrition Together Using a Gender Lens

Addressing unequal power relations between men and women is part of the solution to achieving improved nutrition and agricultural outcomes. This report assesses the women’s empowerment...

Keywords: Gender, Women's empowerment

Cultivating Equality: Delivering Just and Sustainable Food Systems in a Changing Climate

Inequality determines who eats and what they eat—this in turn affects peoples’ resilience in the face of climate change and other environmental factors. This report recommends priorities...

Keywords: Food systems, Women's empowerment

Women and Health: the Key for Sustainable Development

This paper analyzes the concepts, empirical evidence, analytical frameworks, and recommendations of the multifaceted pathways through which gender and health interact. With an emphasis on...

Keywords: Gender, Women's empowerment

Help WEAI Help You: New Opportunities to Utilize the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index

The Women’s Empowerment Agriculture Index (WEAI) is a measure meant to capture women’s inclusion in the agricultural sector. This webinar discussed the creation of the WEAI and the...

Keywords: Women's empowerment, Gender

What Dimensions Of Women’s Empowerment In Agriculture Matter For Nutrition In Ghana?

Analyzing data collected from a 2012 baseline data of the Feed the Future population-based survey in Ghana and the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index, this article examines the...

Keywords: Women's empowerment

The Role of Increased Income and Women’s Empowerment on Nutrition: A Review of Two Feed the Future Activities in Rwanda

This webinar featured two Feed the Future activities, the Integrated Improved Livelihoods Program (IILP), and The Rwanda Dairy Competitiveness Program II (RDCP). The webinar discusses these...

Keywords: Women's empowerment

Can Smallholder Fruit and Vegetable Production Systems Improve Household Food Security and Nutritional Status of Women? Evidence from Rural Uganda

The authors of this paper aim to empirically infer causal linkages between fruit and vegetable production, individual intake, food security, and anemia. Qualitative research and econometric...

Keywords: Food security, Women's empowerment
Location: Uganda

Applying Systems Thinking for Nutrition	From Pilot to Practice: Community Video in the Sahel
How Can We Reduce Anemia?	How Do Programs Catalyze Change for Nutrition?
SPRING Promotes Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture	SPRING’s Community Video Resource Page

Women's empowerment

News

Videos

Job Aids and Tools

Reports

Success Stories

Galleries

Training Materials

Activities

Events

Pages

Resource Review Summaries