Today, the world faces a double burden of malnutrition, with almost three billion people suffering from either undernutrition or overweight (FAO 2013). No country is untouched by this crisis.
Over the course of two weeks, SPRING worked with KAWOLOR (prosperity and productivity in the Diola language) project staff to co-facilitate two trainings on nutrition-sensitive agriculture for new program staff in Kaffrine and Sedhiou, Senegal. Learn more about the SPRING Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture Training resource package here.
Since late 2014, the SPRING project has been working to improve the nutritional status of children under two years of age and women of reproductive age in Kyrgyzstan by promoting the uptake of 11 evidence-based practices.
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 University and other nutrition and agriculture stakeholders – including representatives from World Food Programme, Food & Agriculture Organization, the Agriculture Productivity and Nutrition Improvement Project, and USAID’s Agro Horizon Project – attended the workshop.
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 Security and Nutrition Manager; and Peggy Koniz-Booher, Social and Behavior Change Communication Team Lead spoke about the central role that gender equity plays in improved nutrition outcomes.
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 traveled to Nigeria.
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 community by discussing our newest online training, the Accelerating Behavior Change for Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture (The ABC Training).
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 implementing or scaling up programs. In 2015, SPRING held the Micronutrient Powders Consultation, bringing together 49 MNP program implementers and experts to identify and summarize the most recent MNP program experiences and lessons learned for operationalizing MNP for young children.
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 illustrations can be used to support social and behavior change activities by engaging audiences with appealing and culturally appropriate cues for key behaviors. In Guinea, SPRING facilitated a six-day training on the PTI process for 14 participants.
