The burden of nutrition insecurity across the world remains unacceptably high despite commitments made during the Nutrition for Growth (N4G) summit in 2013 and the Sustainable Development Goals. 150.8 million children under five years are stunted, 50.5million experience wasting, and 38.3 million are overweight (GNR 2018). Stunting among children in Africa has decreased in percentage terms from 38.3% to 30.3% over the same period, yet due to population growth, the actual number of stunted children has risen (ibid). This capability statement covers our ‘West Africa and Brazil Cluster‘. Within this cluster are some of the most nutrition insecure countries in the world; 20% of Guineans are undernourished, and 11% of Senegalese and Nigerians. Consequences of poor nutrition include poor school performance, low adult wages, lower productivity,
reduced ability to fight off disease, and increased risk of nutrition-related chronic diseases in adults. We recognise that women, men, girls and boys face some different opportunities and challenges to achieving nutrition security. For example, one in three women are anaemic, and both pregnancy and lactation considerably increase nutritional needs in terms of dietary quantity (e.g. daily caloric needs increase) and quality (micronutrient intake, particularly folate/folic acid, iron and iodine) (FAO). They often play different roles in the household, community and in decision making processes and have different access to and control over assets. The socially constructed gender roles of men and women interact with their biological roles to affect the nutrition status of the entire family and of each gender (UNSCN).
Nutrition ‘fits‘ under three of UP‘s four strategic pillars: We are committed to helping to build powerful and independent communities that are resilient to shocks/ economically, environmentally and socially sustainable/ and have agency, control and choice in life.
In we are reaching across 5 regions by reducing micro nutrition deficiencies of women and children through sustainable and integrated approaches to food fortification and consumption. This will include/ 1) increased, diversified production, stronger value chains, better market access to and consumption of fortified & high micro nutrient foods 2) Strengthened enabling environment for expansion of conventional food fortification in the Gambia. We work with 300 mother‘s clubs. Their role is to learn and share good cooking practices and nutrition information with their peers. The approach is innovative and effective as it combines capacity building on nutrition issues with good practice, and peer exchanges, while integrating a strong gender focus. In we are contributing to the economic and sustainable development of the market gardening sector in Kankan, Faranah, Bok/ and Kindia by strengthening the capacities of CSOs and producers. This project responds to the ongoing needs of communities impacted by the Ebola crisis which devastated the market gardening and other sectors, with significant need for rural incomes, and improved hygiene and nutrition. We work with market gardening groups (mostly women) to ensure sustainability and reach, and are trialling the tested MA&D and M4P approaches in the market gardening sector. In we are working with to improve agricultural practices and strengthen agri-business development. This includes piloting micro--irrigation schemes to enable vegetable, maize and cassava growers to produce two harvests per year rather than one (a significant shift-change in recent years caused by climate changes), supporting agri-businesses that develop valueadded, nutrition produce, and advocating for an improved legislative environment for smallholders.
UP works across six countries in West Africa (Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Gambia, Senegal, Guinea) and is registered in Guinea-Bissau. We have five established offices across these countries, over 80 staff and 50 partners. Our teams are recognised for their expertise in market based approaches to WASH and agricultural livelihoods, agribusiness development, ICT for development, advocacy, nutrition and building the capacity of local civil society. We are the trusted implementing partners of donors including the European Union, USAID, the Big Lottery Fund, and AGRA.
In Guinea, we integrate our tested Market Analysis and Development (MA&D) and Making Markets work for the Poor (M4P) approaches in the agricultural sector into our nutrition programmes. Together, these approaches function to analyse a market or potential market system from the perspective of multiple actors, including the most marginalised and exploited. They then serve to develop, in partnership with producers and other stakeholders along the value chain, a market system development plan that ensures that the economically poor benefit from the system. Alongside this, farmers, producers and service providers are supported to improve their practices and business management, and are linked together in order to strengthen both individual livelihoods and the market system itself. The approach is participatory, empowering and sustainable. The approach places a particular focus on the needs of and opportunities for women and youth throughout the value chain. We facilitate improved agricultural practices (including climate smart technologies) for a range of nutritious crops including Orange Fleshed Sweet Potato, African Leafy Vegetables, other vegetables (tomatoes, pepper, cucumber, lettuce etc depending on context), pearl millet, rice. Our aims are to support farmers to use affordable, effective methods to increase their yield, improve the quality of their crops, adapt to changing climates and produce more nutritious food (including through bio fortification). This includes providing training of trainers (and monitoring) for government employed agricultural extension agents and community representatives, demonstration fields, farmer-led field trials in improved varieties and technologies, and support for farmer based organisations (for example mother‘s clubs, aggregation centre groups, market gardening groups). We focus on promoting diverse, nutritious crops that are suitable for the target climate and conditions, along with social norms and preferences. In our target communities, women are often principle actors involved in value added processing. This stream is therefore a critical opportunity to build opportunities for women‘s economic empowerment and business development. Value addition also provides opportunities to develop nutritious and appealing products (including bread, chips, stock cubes) from locally available crops that have the potential for significantly higher profit margins than traditional small scale farming. We support existing or potential processors to develop improved processing skills (including hygiene and quality standards, and processing practices that retain nutritional value), source equipment to increase production levels (with positive implications for household incomes), secure markets and maintain viable enterprises. We also help address commonly experienced challenges including storage, transportation, and packaging.
UP has significant experience in using a range of tools to carry out effective education and behaviour change campaigns. Education cam/ paigns are be multifaceted and targeted for each audience. They in/ clude basic nutrition, cooking practices that retain nutritious value, de/ veloping traditional crop diversity to improve diets (eg by using the leaves from commonly grown crops for stews), and hygiene. In Senegal and the Gambia we draw on social enterprise, Jokalante‘s, innovative portfolio of communication technologies that enables locally-relevant, two way communications in trusted voices and local languages using mobile and radio technology. The technologies enable us to monitor uptake of improved nutrition and agricultural practices, and identify and develop solutions to challenges to uptake. Other education meth/ ods include using the ‘One Trainer One Projector‘ approach that builds the capacity of staff to develop tailored, engaging videos as well as facil/ itating access to equipment,/ and cooking demonstrations. In the Gambia we are contributing to creating an environment for an expanded fortification programme . To do this we reviewed the existing national strategy in a participatory process involving the government, pri/ vate sector and civil society stakeholders, including international bodies such as FAO and other UN agencies. We are building up to developing a detailed road map for expanding fortification. We use a process-based ap/ proach to introduce actors to the range of options available for food fortification and the trade offs, challenges and opportunities of each within the Gambia context. This will include the expansion of existing
food fortification regulation to include micronutrients such as Vit A, Fe, Zn. We begin by conducting a gender analysis including gendered market analysis and agri-business viability studies. We work with communities to build women‘s agency to make decisions over what they eat, how they eat it, what produce they grow and their businesses. Our activities pay particular attention to the specific barriers and opportunities that women face, for example by facilitating tailored business development support, using ICTs that account for lower literacy levels, and by provid/ ing safe spaces for women to feedback on the project. We also facilitate “power with” by establishing, building capacity of, and supporting wom/ en‘s nutrition and producer groups. We support smallholders to establish or strengthen nutrition-sensitive agri-businesses through the value chain, from production and processing to service provision. The approach includes basic and inter/ mediate skills development (financial literacy and budget management, business plan development and implementation, marketing, contract management and negotiation for example) combined with ongoing business support functions to ensure that learning is applied. We also play a role in facilitating links between producers, aggregators, buyers, market vendors, service providers (extension workers, transport, stor/ age, marketing, packaging etc) and other stakeholders to ensure that every ‘link in the chain‘ is strengthened and contributes to improving household nutrition and food security.
With thanks to Jason Florio for the images