SPRING’s work in Nigeria aimed to reduce maternal and child undernutrition and improve HIV-free survival of infants and young children. Working within the context of HIV and AIDS, SPRING improved the national, social, and policy environments as they related to priority nutrition practices and services, and also improved access to nutrition information, counseling services, and other programming efforts to prevent undernutrition.
The SPRING/Nigeria approach focused on the roll-out of community and facility infant and young child feeding (IYCF) training packages and complementary social and behavior change communication approaches, worked at the national level to strengthen nutrition coordination and policy efforts, and jointly evaluated the community IYCF package with UNICEF to assess its effectiveness in improving IYCF behaviors in an environment supportive of its design, management, technical assistance, and monitoring when adapted for local context and implemented at scale.
SPRING's main partners included the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Women’s Affairs, at both state and federal levels, the State Committee on Food and Nutrition, and the National Primary Care Development Agency. SPRING also worked closely with USAID implementing partners under the Umbrella Grant Mechanism (STEER and SMILE) and Local Partners for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (ARFH, HIFASS, and WEWE), as well as other projects and organizations through the Nutrition Partners’ Forum and its subcommittee, the National IYCF Technical Working Group.
Over the course of four years (June 2012 - November 2016), SPRING built the capacity of government, PEPFAR-funded partners, CSOs, and communities on IYCF across 16 states and 122 LGAs, covering all six geopolitical zones of the country. Through our partners, we worked with over 100 CSOs, facilitated the formation of over 3,000 IYCF support groups, and reached over 152,000 caregivers and children under two. We trained over 2,600 people on the Nigeria Community and Facility IYCF Counseling Package and two other trainings developed under SPRING – Nutrition and Hygiene for Orphans and Vulnerable Children in Nigeria: A Training Guide for Community-Based Organisations and Nigeria: Complementary Feeding and Food Demonstration Training Package.
