News

SPRING is supporting national efforts to improve nutrition-related health outcomes in Bangladesh. Through a series of activities, SPRING is working with local partners and the Ministry of Health to strengthen in-country capacity to reduce undernutrit...

Mobile health (mHealth) is gaining recognition as a useful and versatile public health tool. To better understand mHealth’s potential to help eliminate undernutrition, SPRING partner, Save the Children, is leading efforts to integrate mHealth into nu...

Reducing anemia on a global scale is an urgent priority among many governments. Innovative approaches to end anemia are central to SPRING’s efforts against undernutrition. As part of these efforts, SPRING’s nutrition experts are participating in USAI...

Participants call on the international community to continue to raise awareness, encourage a coordinated and collective response, and prioritize specific actions that will generate the knowledge and data needed to improve adolescent nutrition.

On June 22, 2018, the USAID-funded SPRING project in the Kyrgyz Republic hosted an event in Bishkek to share important lessons and accomplishments of the project from 2014 to 2018. The event was attended by Madamin Karataev, Deputy Minister, Ministry...

The CORE Group’s annual Global Health Practitioner Conference was held June 4th – 7th, 2018 in Bethesda, Maryland. This year, the conference was centered on the theme “Community Health Action for the Humanitarian-Development Nexus.” Three SPRING staf...

In April 2018, over 1,000 social and behavior change communications (SBCC) experts gathered in Nusa Dua, Indonesia for the 2018 International Social and Behavior Change Communication Summit. Even before the summit began, SPRING had been highly engage...

Sufficient funding is needed to address malnutrition, yet despite recent progress, it is still difficult to accurately estimate the available financing for nutrition because of its multi-sectoral nature and varied financing sources. To address this g...

Since 2015, SPRING supported the Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MoHS) in Sierra Leone to build a multi-sectoral coordination platform to address anemia. Efforts began with a Landscape Analysis of Anemia and Anemia-related Programming, revealing t...

On April 5-6, the USAID-funded SPRING project conducted a workshop together with the Kyrgyz National Agrarian University on understanding the linkages between agriculture and nutrition in the Kyrgyz Republic. Faculty from the Kyrgyz State Agrarian Un...

On March 8 2018, SPRING celebrated International Women’s Day with a presentation at the 1,000 Days Advocacy Working Group in Washington, D.C. Gwyneth Cotes, Global Initiatives Director; Altrena Mukuria Country Initiatives Director; Sarah Titus, Food ...

This year, two SPRING videos received honorable mentions in the 2018 Pulitzer Global Health Video competition for the Consortium of Universities for Global Health (CUGH) conference in New York. “Districts Assess Anemia with DATA” was honored in the v...

The SPRING project worked with the World Health Organization (WHO) Evidence and Programme Guidance Unit, Department of Nutrition for Health and Development, to develop Guideline: Implementing Effective Actions for Improving Adolescent Nutrition. This...

The 2013 Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) for Nigeria found that infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices remain suboptimal in Nigeria. Among other findings, only 17.4% of children under six months old are exclusively breastfeed, and only ...

Over the past several years, SPRING has worked to create and refine guidance for the design of nutrition-sensitive agriculture programs. In late January and early February of 2018, SPRING staff Heather Danton and Sarah McClung traveled to Guatemala t...

UNICEF, the Nigeria Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH), and SPRING carried out an evaluation of the Community Infant and Young Child Feeding (C-IYCF) Counselling Package in Nigeria. In September 2017, two SPRING staff members and one consultant travel...

UNICEF, the Nigeria Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH), and SPRING carried out an evaluation of the Community Infant and Young Child Feeding (C-IYCF) Counselling Package in Nigeria. On January 31st, 2018 SPRING staff Peggy Koniz-Booher and Sascha Lams...

The Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) defines global standards of optimal care for appropriate breastfeeding and mother-child bonding. Participating hospitals undergo a process of planning, training, and organizational and policy changes to ac...

SPRING’s community-led video approach to improve nutrition in Niger and Burkina Faso received over 6,000 votes in Zilient’s 2017 Resilience Awards, earning it a third place finish among over 40 submissions.SPRING worked with key populations in the Af...

A central part of SPRING’s work is to share learnings on how to implement effective nutrition programming. As more countries are moving ahead with efforts to end malnutrition globally, the need for large-scale implementation and impact has never been...

How can we use our work to help implementers and local partners become more effective change agents in our nutrition-sensitive agriculture programming? On November 1, SPRING explored this question and shared our work with others in the development co...

On November 13-14, 2017, Alan Meltzer, Chargé d'Affaires of the United States Embassy in the Kyrgyz Republic visited USG-supported programs in Naryn oblast. In Jan-Bulak village, he joined a home visit by a community volunteer trained by SPRING, to o...

Micronutrient powders (MNP) are an efficacious intervention to reduce iron deficiency anemia and to fill nutrient gaps in young children, but there is limited published implementation research, which is needed as countries are increasingly implementi...

After 18 months of providing nutrition-focused assistance to communities in three regions of Senegal (Kaolack, Fatick and Kaffrine), the SPRING/Senegal project officially came to a close on September 30, 2017. To formally mark the end of the project ...

SPRING/Kyrgyz Republic, funded by USAID to address issues of chronic malnutrition and anemia among women and children of Kyrgyz Republic, hosted a round table event on Friday, November 17, 2017 to disseminate the findings from a series of four popula...

As part of Sierra Leone’s efforts to build a multisectoral platform to address anemia, SPRING has been providing support to draft the Sierra Leone National Multi-Sectoral Strategy to Prevent and Control Anemia. This is the first strategy developed in...

Nearly 100 people attended SPRING/Uganda’s close out and legacy event to celebrate the project’s five-year journey to achieve results in nutrition. Participants included representatives from the USAID/Uganda Mission, officials from different ministri...

SPRING/Uganda presented on the current status of maize milling nationwide and the way forward for millers who would like to fortify during a dialogue and dissemination event attended by more than 40 stakeholders. During this one-day meeting, millers ...

The photo-to-illustration (PTI) process allows graphic artists to use photographs from the community as a reference to develop high-quality illustrations which are technically accurate, culturally acceptable, and attractive to audiences. These illust...

A group of USAID/Senegal and SPRING/Senegal staff observed a few of the activities initiated with SPRING’s support during a three-day field visit from September 19-21, 2017. The group visited six communities and saw nutrition-sensitive agriculture an...

On September 7, 2017, SPRING/Ghana hosted an event to share important lessons learned and accomplishments in improving maternal and child nutrition outcomes in Ghana from 2014 to 2017. This event was chaired by the Regional Director of the Ghana Heal...

“Using community video is like having a demonstration plot in every village.” This quote from one of SPRING’s partners in Guinea helped set the tone for a learning event that SPRING/Guinea held on July 17 in Conakry in collaboration with partners Dig...

On August 21, 2017, SPRING participated in an event commemorating the launch of nut roasting equipment in Kumasi, Ghana. This equipment was purchased through SPRING as part of the public-private partnership between USAID and Hershey, to be used by Pr...

For the last two years, SPRING/Uganda chaired the inspection and enforcement working group of the East Central and Southern Africa Health Community (ECSA-HC). To ensure the sustainability of the working group, SPRING transitioned this role to the Uga...

At the ICTforAg 2017 conference, SPRING presented aspects of its social behavior change communication programming in Guinea. Phil Moses, SBCC Technical Advisor, shared how SPRING has developed video production units in Faranah and Mamou, Guinea that ...

The Health Tutors’ College of Mulago (HTCM) developed and integrated a module on anemia prevention and control interventions into their three-year Bachelor of Medical Education degree program, with SPRING/Uganda’s support. Starting in the 2018/2019 a...

From July 7-11, 2017, over 1,500 health economists and public health practitioners gathered in Boston to discuss new ideas for the economics of global health systems. Topics discussed included latest methods and debates on cost effectiveness analysis...

At the end of June, SPRING released new National Anemia Profiles for Bangladesh, Cambodia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, and Sierra Leone and updated the current profiles for Ethiopia, Ghana, and Peru. Each profile provides a snapshot of a c...

Understanding what causes anemia is critical to design effective programs and monitor impact. At the beginning of July, the Biomarkers Reflecting Inflammation and Nutritional Determinants of Anemia (BRINDA) Project published a supplement in the Ameri...

The Uganda Parliamentary Forum on Nutrition, the first of its kind, was launched on June 20, 2017 with the support of SPRING/Uganda and other USAID-funded partners. USAID implementing partners SPRING, FANTA, Advocacy for Better Health, and Communicat...

Poverty is often a precursor to malnutrition. When families don’t have access to diverse diets and proper sanitation, the youngest members in the critical first 1,000 days, from pregnancy up to the child’s second birthday, suffer lifelong consequence...

According to the Kyrgyz Republic Demographic and Health Survey from 2014, only 60 percent of newborns in the Kyrgyz Republic are breastfed within an hour after birth and only 41 percent of infants under 6 months are exclusively breastfed. Evidence sh...

Immunization, family planning (FP), and maternal, infant, and young child nutrition (MIYCN) are all important aspects of primary care for women and children. There are many missed opportunities for integration which could further improve these servic...

In April 2017, SPRING/Guinea and Farm Radio International (FRI) led trainings in Mamou and Faranah for four local community radio stations on how to develop effective interactive radio programming to support the uptake of nutrition-sensitive agricult...

In 2017, SPRING/Ghana started piloting Father-to-Father Support Groups in four communities in the Northern and Upper East Regions of Ghana. These groups are comprised of 15-17 men who meet twice per month to discuss family-oriented issues that includ...

SPRING/Uganda conducted key informant interviews with 12 members of Uganda’s National Anemia Working Group (NAWG) on their experiences with cross-sector collaboration and anemia prevention at the national and district levels. The working group member...

From May 4-8, 2017, SPRING/Senegal trained all six partner networks in Senegal on the technical and business elements of operating and maintaining cereal processing machinery.As part of its multi-sectoral strategy to reducing malnutrition, SPRING aim...

Office of the Prime Minister, members of the tenth Parliament of Uganda, and partners are organizing an inaugural Parliamentary Forum on Nutrition to educate lawmakers on the state of nutrition in Uganda. USAID implementing partners SPRING, FANTA, Ad...

In April 2017, SPRING/Guinea tested and refined a nutrition-sensitive agriculture training package that will be integrated into a broader agro-preneur program curriculum for use by the Feed the Future-funded Strengthening Market-Led Agricultural Rese...

On April 25, 2017, SPRING/Senegal recognized World Malaria Day with local partner l’Association pour la promotion de la femme sénégalese [Association for the promotion of Senegalese Women] (APROFES) and Plan International, an implementing partner of ...