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Policies and Governance for Nutrition

“Good governance is perhaps the single most important factor in eradicating poverty and promoting development.”

- former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan

Governance refers to the capacity and processes for making and implementing decisions and providing public goods and services, including those relevant to nutrition. Policies are a tool of governance that can impact a country’s progress toward good nutrition. However, responsibility for governing nutrition activities often falls among and across various government ministry lines and often requires multi-sectoral and multi-stakeholder platforms.

SPRING’s research and assistance has created practical guidance on how to strengthen nutrition governance and policy while improving transparency and collaboration. Our Pathways to Better Nutrition (PBN) studies in Nepal and Uganda shed light on the influence, impact, and success of nutrition plans and policies on decision-making processes, funding, and, ultimately, on improving nutrition outcomes. And assessments conducted in Bangladesh, Guatemala, Nepal, and Rwanda provide evidence on how different Feed the Future countries are governing nutrition programs, involving different sectors in both design and implementation.

Building on these findings, we have also developed guidance and tools for strengthening policies and governance for nutrition. Our District Assessment Tool for Anemia (DATA) provides both for determining the main factors that cause anemia, prioritizing interventions, and identifying actions to strengthen anemia-related programming. Meanwhile, in Bangladesh, Ghana, Haiti, the Kyrgyz Republic, and Uganda, SPRING has helped to develop nutrition-related policies and improved protocols, curricula, supervision guidelines, and monitoring systems to support strong, transparent, and successful nutrition governance.

News

Mike Mazinga, a member of SPRING/Uganda staff, explains how SPRING played a role in encouraging production and consumption of fortified foods in Uganda.
November 2017
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...
Nancy Adero, SPRING Technical Advisor for Anemia & Micronutrients, presents the PBN findings in Kisoro district. She urged districts to identify means of using conditional funds to strengthen funding for nutrition. PHOTO CREDIT: Adera Asasira, SPRING
February 2016
During three dissemination events in Uganda, SPRING, USAID’s global nutrition project, presented findings from its Pathways to Better Nutrition (PBN) Study. This study, which took place from 2013 to 2015, provides a time-series view of changes in pla...
PBN Nepal team member Madhukar B. Shrestha presents final district findings in Achham
April 2016
SPRING held three district-level dissemination events in Nepal to present results from the “Pathways to Better Nutrition” (PBN) Case Study, which focused on Nepal’s implementation of a National Nutrition Action Plan: The Multi-Sector Nutrition Plan (...