A new Transform Nutrition paper is now available Early Childhood Nutrition Is Positively Associated with Adolescent Educational Outcomes: Evidence from the Andhra Pradesh Child and Parents Study (APCAPS) by Arindam Nandi, Ashvin Ashok, Sanjay Kinra, Jere R Behrman, and Ramanan Laxminarayan, Journal of Nutrition, March 9, 2016. [Read more…]
UK book launch of Nourishing Millions
Monday July 11, 2016 17.30-19.15 pm – Stanmer House, Brighton
In recent years, the world has seen unprecedented attention and political commitment to addressing malnutrition. As nutrition rapidly rises on the global agenda, guidance is urgently needed on how to design, implement, and evaluate nutrition-enhancing policies and interventions. Nourishing Millions: Stories of Change in Nutrition brings together the most intriguing stories about improving nutrition from the past five decades. These stories provide insight into what works in nutrition, what does not, and the factors that contribute to success. [Read more…]
Children’s diets and access to markets in Ethiopia
Chronic undernutrition in Ethiopia is widespread and many children consume highly monotonous diets. To improve feeding practices in Ethiopia, a strong focus in nutrition programming has been placed on improving the nutrition knowledge of caregivers. In this new Transform Nutrition/ Ethiopia Strategy Support Programme working paper Children’s diets, nutrition knowledge, and access to markets , the impact of improving nutrition knowledge within households and its complementarity with market access is considered.
Stories of Change in Nutrition: A Tool Pool
A new discussion paper Stories of Change in Nutrition: A Tool Pool draws on inputs to, and discussions at, a ‘Stories of Change in nutrition’ methods development workshop. It highlights the various concepts, methods, and tools that researchers are considering to measure nutrition-relevant change in their respective countries. The focus is on nutrition-relevant policy and practice. [Read more…]
Transforming Nutrition; Ideas, Policies and Outcomes 2016
11 – 15 July 2016 – Institute of Development Studies, UK
This 5 day course Transforming Nutrition; Ideas, Policies and Outcomes 2016 is designed for both policy makers and practitioners. The course will lead participants through new ways of thinking about undernutrition and what to do about it and provide a base from which they can develop their own future leadership for transformational change.
Applications are invited now for this popular course. Deadline 10 March 2016.
Transform Nutrition leaders network launched
The Transform Nutrition leaders network was launched at an event Delhi in December. The audience included Transforming Nutrition short course cohort from 2012 to 2015, nutrition researchers and nutrition champions. The overall theme was ‘ Cross sectoral communication within nutrition and building on the strengths of networks’. [Read more…]
India Health Report on Nutrition launched
The India Health Report on Nutrition 2015 is now available following a launch in Delhi with Honourable Minister Smt Maneka Gandhi and Honourable Minister Shri Jagat Prakash present. This new report from Transform Nutrition offers a critical analysis of the current situation with nutrition at the national and state levels in India. It provides easy-to-understand, state-wise data dashboards for 28 states and Delhi that give a comprehensive view of nutrition and its determinants. It looks at disparities in these outcomes and their multiple determinants across geographical regions, socio-economic classes, and demographic groups and helps identify strategic choices for policy-making at the state level.
Made in India: Good Nutrition for all
Today sees ministers, researchers and other stakeholders come together at the launch event in Delhi of two new reports, India Health Report on Nutrition 2015 and the Global Nutrition Report 2015. Both point to India’s improved performance in reducing its high burden of malnutrition. But both reports point out that this improvement could—and should–be much more rapid. Event agenda here.
Application deadline is almost here! Short Course on Transforming Nutrition in India
Transforming Nutrition in India: Ideas, Policies and Outcomes 7-11 December 2015
Shweta Khandelwal and Purnima Menon
Course Directors: Prof. Lawrence Haddad (IFPRI-UK), Prof. Aryeh Stein (Emory University), Dr. Purnima Menon (IFPRI-India) and Dr. Shweta Khandelwal(PHFI)
The context: Facing simultaneous demographic, health and nutrition transitions alongside continuing poverty, deprivation, gender inequities and food insecurity, India faces a tremendous burden of malnutrition. On the one hand, India has the highest number of undernourished children, while on the other, overweight, obesity and non-communicable diseases are rapidly escalating, and micronutrient deficiencies remain stubbornly high. This triple burden of malnutrition is often inextricably linked biologically, socially and policy responses to the overall burden of malnutrition need to come together and evolve together to ensure that India’s health, as a nation, is strengthened.
The capacity challenge: At the same time, the strategic capacity to understand, interpret and manage this truly overwhelming burden of poor nutrition in countries like India is limited. This, in turn, can hamper India’s ability to tackle existing and emerging nutrition-related problems. In the context of this landscape of challenges, but an increasing political and economic awareness of the importance of good nutrition for development, the Centre for Chronic Disease Control (CCDC) and the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), together with international academic partners, aim to strengthen the ability of the Indian nutrition policy, technical and academic community to understand and mitigate this challenge through the development of various forms of public engagement and training.
The course: One method of strengthening strategic capacity for nutrition actions is through training and network-building. PHFI’s response to this is our short course on nutrition, in partnership with Transform Nutrition, a global research partnership that PHFI is proud to be a part of. The short course “Transforming Nutrition in India: Ideas, Policies and Outcomes” will be held from 7th-11th Dec 2015 in Gurgaon, Haryana, not far from New Delhi. This five-day course, initially developed for global nutrition practitioners and decision-makers, and already popular internationally, has now been tailored to be specific to India. In the course, we discuss the state of nutrition in India, links between nutrition and other determinants of health, the role of different types of interventions, challenges to scaling up and converging interventions, and thinking and acting multisectorally. A key feature of the course is to embrace the political economy of nutrition and discuss what it means to move nutrition up the political agenda, to understand and advocate for increased financing for improving nutrition.
Course faculty: Dr. Shweta Khandelwal, who has invested years of her career in understanding and mapping nutrition capacity challenges in India is the course convenor and coordinator. Faculty who support this course, through lectures, direct and intense engagements with participants, and as a continued resource even after the course ends, consist of Indian and international leaders in the area of public health nutrition research and policy. Core faculty include Professor Lawrence Haddad, Professor Aryeh Stein, Professor Reynaldo Martorell, Professor Srinath Reddy, Professor D. Prabhakaran, Professor Ramanan Laxminarayan, Dr Purnima Menon and others.
Who will benefit from this course? Applications are invited especially from early- to mid-career candidates who are either considering working in the nutrition policy and program areas or are already working on strengthening nutrition actions in public sector, private sector or civil society organizations. It is best suited to generalists who need to dive into and understand the state of play of nutrition in India, career nutritionists who want to “catch up”.
The course fee is INR 7500 for 5 days, not inclusive of travel, accommodation or transportation charges you might incur to attend. Meals are provided during the course. The final date for applications is 10 November, 2015. Seats are filling up!
Email us at nutrisem2015@gmail.com or visit www.phfi.org for further details on the course and registration information.
Maximizing the nutrition impact of social protection programs in India: What will it take?
POSHAN and Transform Nutrition Delhi seminar: October 16th
Register now, to avoid disappointment! (Registration is free) Registration link
You can find the draft agenda, here
In the past decade, India has witnessed a rise in the coverage and uptake of social protection programs including the Public Distribution System (PDS), the Mid-day Meal Scheme (MDMS) and Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA). Apart from ensuring greater equity, such programs have untapped potential to deliver nutrition outcomes because they directly address the underlying determinants of undernutrition such as food security, poverty, and education, among others.
With this in mind, POSHAN (Partnerships and Opportunities for Strengthening and Harmonizing Actions for Nutrition in India), Transform Nutrition, and 3ie are jointly organizing the seminar ‘Maximizing the nutrition impact of social protection programs in India: What will it take?’, which will be held on October 16th, 2015 in New Delhi.
The seminar sessions are built largely on findings from research currently being conducted both within and outside India, as well as a review of the literature around social protection programs in India and their nutritional linkages. The seminar is intended to bring together evidence that can inform and support policy initiatives aimed at maximizing the potential of social protection programs to deliver nutrition outcomes. It will offer a platform for the discussion of implementation experiences, research findings and policy mechanisms from across India, as well as an opportunity for the presentation of some important lessons from an international context. Within India, this seminar will be focused on the nutritional aspects of large scale Indian social protection programs such as the PDS, MDMS and MNREGA, on the ways in which these can be strengthened and improved. In addition, the event will also showcase global evidence from experiments with other transfer modalities.
By bringing practitioners and academics together we hope to throw some light on the following questions:
- How have government policies, especially social protection programs, succeeded or failed in achieving nutrition goals?
- What can be done to make the existing programs more nutrition sensitive in order to ensure faster progress in the future?
- Are there any lessons India can learn with the global literature around social protection?
