STORIES OF CHANGE IN NUTRITION: COUNTRY BRIEFS AVAILABLE

The Stories of Change in Nutrition initiative, funded by CIFF and DFID through Transform Nutrition, fills a key gap in the experiential evidence base for nutrition. In-depth case studies from five countries (Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Nepal, Senegal, and Zambia) and one Indian state (Odisha) explore factors contributing to improvements in nutritional status. They tell the stories of policymakers, nutrition leaders, and implementers in order to help stakeholders better understand what drives impact and how enabling environments, pro-nutrition policy, and implementation processes can be cultivated and sustained.

The findings contributed to Nourishing Millions, a recently published book compiled by IFPRI, which is available for download on the Nourishing Millions website.

In addition, a summary of findings from these studies is now available in brief format, by country, at the below links. The briefs are also available for download, along with other Stories of Change resources, on the Transform Nutrition website.

• Bangladesh country brief: The Bangladesh brief presents a summary of findings that examine how many millions of children in Bangladesh grow up stunted due to poor nutrition and levels of acute nutrition deficiencies remain high, despite remarkable improvements in welfare and human development in Bangladesh in recent years.

• Ethiopia country brief: The Ethiopia brief is a summary of findings which draws attention to the real world challenges of implementing nutrition sensitive agendas and provides recommendations for how to move forward with nutrition sensitive programming in Ethiopia.

• Nepal country brief: The Nepal brief considers how Nepal has transitioned into a global nutrition success story, achieving the fastest reductions in child stunting worldwide. Given the multiple short- and long-term consequences related to undernutrition, learning lessons from Nepal’s success to date in reducing undernutrition is important both for Nepal and for other countries facing similar nutritional challenges.

• Senegal country brief (and French-translated version): The Senegal brief summarizes a research study which tells a story to explain the interrelated factors that contributed to Senegal’s reduction in undernutrition. The hope is that these findings will help to contribute to wider impacts in terms of political commitment and policy coherence for nutrition.

• Zambia country brief: The Zambia brief is a summary of findings that aims to understand the following: what has driven change in stunting over the past fifteen years; nutrition policy process over time in Zambia and assess how certain issues came to the fore; how issues were acted upon at different levels; who and what drove these processes; and how policy and program changes were received and experienced by communities.