How Nutrition Programs Can Level Up with Gamification
Alive & Thrive, November 2021
- Social and Behavior Change and Gender
Reports and Tools
Finding ways to turn desired practices or behaviors into games with achievable outcomes, providing milestones to indicate progress, recognizing success, giving participants autonomy, and making sure they feel a strong connection to the broader mission can leverage motivation and induce behavior change.
How Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture Programs Can Realize both Nutrition and Gender Equality Goals
CGIAR Generating Evidence and New Directions for Equitable Results, February 2021
Reports and Tools
Ensuring gender transformative outcomes of nutrition-sensitive agriculture programs (NSAPs) requires being intentional about empowering women and transforming gender relations as well as recognizing potential trade-offs between women’s different roles and the unintended consequences of NSAP participation. Using evidence-based strategies to build women’s capacity, address exclusionary gender norms, reach men and communities, and monitor progress by using appropriate and inclusive indicators and methodologies are critical.
How the pandemic is affecting funding for nutrition
Borces, Kyle, Mary D’Alimonte, Augustin Flory, Research for Development, May 2020
- Nutrition in Humanitarian Contexts
- Food Systems
Research Articles
COVID-19 is placing additional strain on nutrition programs’ limited resources. This blog post identifies three key trends in nutrition financing in the current context including increasing rates of malnutrition, challenges to social sector funding, and an unfavorable outlook for nutrition-specific aid. The authors assert that the nutrition community will need to push more than ever to mobilize funding commitments at the upcoming Nutrition for Growth Summit in 2021, and in the meantime, make sure that recovery efforts for COVID-19 are as nutrition-sensitive as possible.
How Perspectives on Food Safety of Vendors and Consumers Translate into Food-Choice Behaviors in 6 African and Asian Countries
Isanovic, Sejla, Shilpa V. Constantinides, Edward A. Frongillo, et al. Current Developments in Nutrition, January 2023
- Food Systems
Research Articles
Consumers use knowledge, lived experiences, and concerns about food safety when making food choice decisions. Successful food safety policies must consider concerns of consumers and prioritize actions to reduce risks to the food supply.
How Should We Measure Nutrition Programs' Impact? Considering the Limitations of Stunting as the “Gold Standard” Indicator
USAID Advancing Nutrition, March 2022
- Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning
Reports and Tools
This report summarizes strengths and limitations of relying on stunting as an indicator of project impact.
How Talking to Babies Can Boost Their Brain Development
World Economic Forum, May 2023
- Early Childhood Development
Reports and Tools
Babies’ exposure to language affects their brain development. Playing word games, letting the baby take the lead in conversations, and engaging in contingent interactions when a caregiver responds promptly and meaningfully to what the baby is doing, are particularly important.
How to Engage Men in Nurturing Care across the Life Stages
MOMENTUM, June 2022
- Early Childhood Development
Reports and Tools
This infographic shows how to support men in providing nurturing care from pregnancy to early childhood. It provides a curriculum, guidance, and checklists to train health care providers to increase father engagement.
How to Work with USAID
USAID, January 2021
Events
USAID representatives discuss agency priorities, the types of partners it supports, and how to find funding opportunities. The goal of the New Partnerships Initiative is to multiply its development impact by elevating local leadership, fostering creativity and innovation, and mobilizing resources across the Agency’s programs. This is a webinar.
How to Work With USAID: Exploring USAID Funding Opportunities
USAID, March 2021
Reports and Tools
This series answers frequently asked questions about working with USAID and provides tips and examples on researching funding opportunities, creating a proposal, and building a budget and a monitoring and evaluation plan. This is a webinar.
How We Can Engage Youth in Food Systems to Improve Diet and Nutrition Outcomes
USAID Advancing Nutrition, December 2022
- Food Systems
- Nutrition and Health Systems
Reports and Tools
Better evidence is urgently needed of effective approaches to engage youth in food systems. Strategies for involving youth in improving nutrition include providing them opportunities to engage at various points in food systems, increasing promotion of and access to healthy food options, encouraging youth to promote healthy nutrition-related behaviors on social media, and involving them in participatory decision-making processes.
Human Development Report 2021–2022
United Nations Development Program, September 2022
- Knowledge Management
Reports and Tools
Destabilizing planetary pressures and inequalities, societal transformations to ease these pressures, and intensifying polarization are impacting human development. Investing in renewable energy, pandemic preparation, insurance, social protection, and capacity strengthening are critical to respond to these challenges. The report is in English while the overview is available in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. There is an accompanying webinar.
Human Resources and Curricula Content for Early Child Development Implementation: Multicountry Mixed Methods Evaluation
Kohli-Lynch, Maya, Victoria Ponce Hardy, Raquel Bernal Salazar, et al. BMJ Open, Vol. 10, Issue 4, April 2020
- Early Childhood Development
Research Articles
Researchers evaluated 32 responsive caregiving and early learning projects in 17 low- and middle-income countries on 4 continents to identify human resources and curricula critical for program implementation. Human resources themes that emerged range from worker characteristics and incentives to training and supervision. Curricula themes that emerged include flexible adaptation of content and delivery, fidelity, and intervention duration. The authors suggest that stakeholders pay special attention to these themes when designing and implementing programs.
Human Resources for Care of Small and Sick Newborns: The Role of Midwives and Nurses in Protecting, Promoting, and Supporting Breastfeeding
Care of the Small and Sick Newborn Community of Practice, August 2021
- Knowledge Management
Events
Midwives, nurses and physicians play a critical role in protecting, promoting, and supporting breastfeeding in health facilities. Part of a series coordinated with the Network for Improving Quality of Care for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health and NEST360, this webinar highlights the experiences of practitioners in Nepal and Rwanda.
Humanitarian Food Assistance and Nutrition Outcomes Among Refugees: A Historical Perspective
Guli, Alfred Ecega, Alex Barakagira, Regis Zombeire. Journal of Scientific Research and Reports, February 2023
- Nutrition in Humanitarian Contexts
Research Articles
The strategic shift from food aid to food assistance, including initiatives to increase local production and purchases and cash and voucher transfers, has the potential to address hunger more effectively.
Humanitarian Response Plan - South Sudan
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, March 2021
Reports and Tools
Response priorities include reducing morbidity, incidents of human rights violations, and gender-based violence. Also critical are ensuring safe, equitable, and dignified access to cross-sectoral services to address basic needs; identifying strategies to assist those vulnerable to crisis as they seek to recover; seeking solutions to displacement; and building resilience to shocks and stresses.
Identifying Children at Risk of Intellectual Disability in UNICEF’s Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys: Cross-Sectional Survey
Emerson, Eric, Gwynnyth Llewellyn. Disability and Health Journal, August 2020
- Early Childhood Development
Research Articles
Using functional difficulty associated with learning (FDAL) data from Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys as a proxy indicator for intellectual disability risks may produce false negative errors in low- and-middle income countries and false positive errors among those with higher socioeconomic status. This article is behind a paywall.
Identifying Effective Message-Framing Techniques in Behavior Change Communication for Healthy Diets: An Experimental Study of Promoting Biofortified Maize Adoption in Ethiopia
Jada, Kaleb Shiferaw, Marrit van den Berg. Appetite, August 2022
- Social and Behavior Change and Gender
Research Articles
Nutrition education increased demand for nutritionally enhanced crops, while gain-framed messaging (e.g., achieving something) resulted in higher willingness to pay for nutritionally enhanced maize than loss-framed messaging. Motivational orientations and individuals’ risk perceptions impacted the effect of framed messages.
Identifying and Interrupting Fecal-Oral Pathways in Young Children
Food Security and Nutrition Network, November 2022
- Knowledge Management
Reports and Tools
This guide helps Resilience Food Security Activity implementing partners determine whether they need to conduct research to identify and prioritize fecal-oral pathways for infants and young children. It provides guidance about how to design formative research activities and explores appropriate data collection methods for measuring the effectiveness of interventions. The guide is available in English and French.
IDH Gender Toolkit
IDH Sustainable Trade Initiative, November 2019
- Food Systems
Reports and Tools
Globally, women often face barriers to agricultural supply chains. IDH developed this toolkit to help programmers integrate gender into their supply chain approaches by changing business practices, improving sector governance, and increasing field-level sustainability. The first section of the toolkit provides examples of successful case studies; the second section outlines opportunities for gender integration at different stages in the programming process.
If You Can't Measure It, You Can't Improve It: Experiences and Insights on Social Norms Measurement
The Learning Collaborative to Advance Normative Change, November 2019
- Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning
- Social and Behavior Change and Gender
Events
Experts from Drexel University, CARE USA, UNICEF, and Emory University presented an overview on the state of social norms measures, building on the recently published guide titled Resources for Measuring Social Norms: A Practical Guide for Implementers. The panelists also examined advancements in measuring social norms and shared various frameworks for designing measurement tools. Challenges in social norms measurement methods and the monitoring of social behaviors were also discussed.
If You Don't Find Anything, You Can't Eat-Mining Livelihoods and Income, Gender Roles, and Food Choices in Northern Guinea
Stokes-Walters, Ronald, Mohammed Lamine Fofana, Joseph Lamilé Songbono, et al. Resources Policy, March 2021
Research Articles
Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) continues to grow in sub-Saharan Africa, but how ASM affects food choices among those living in mining camps is not well understood. Research findings suggest that while artisanal mining may provide women with higher wages, financial benefits are often reduced or constrained by existing gender roles, which impacts household food decision-making.
IFPRI Resources and Analyses of COVID-19 Impact
International Food Policy Research Institute, March 2020
- Knowledge Management
- Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning
Reports and Tools
The International Food Policy Research Institute is publishing a series of blog posts and continually updating its website with links to provide news and information on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on food security, poverty, and development. The resources include virtual events hosted by IFPRI and pandemic-related podcast episodes.
IFPRI’s new COVID-19 Food Price Monitor tracks warning signs of stress in local markets
IFPRI, May 2020
- Nutrition in Humanitarian Contexts
- Food Systems
- Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning
Research Articles
The Food Price Monitor from IFPRI allows users to track changes in food prices since the start of COVID-19 social distancing measures. Daily updates of prices in wholesale and retail markets are provided for a wide range of key food products.
Illustrative Behaviors to Improve Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture
USAID Advancing Nutrition, June 2023
- Social and Behavior Change and Gender
Reports and Tools
The tool identifies evidence-based nutrition-sensitive behaviors across the food system that support the design of more effective approaches to improve nutrition outcomes. It is available in English and French.