Ghana’s 2014 Demographic and Health Survey found that nearly 20 percent of children under 5 were stunted. In June 2020, to support the government’s nutrition objectives, USAID Advancing Nutrition began working with Ghana’s National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) to improve country coordination for nutrition and resilience by strengthening collaboration among key nutrition stakeholders, such as the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) movement.

Through district inception meetings, we officially launched the project in 17 districts in Northern, North East, Upper West, and Upper East Regions and oriented stakeholders on multi-sectoral nutrition programming. Stakeholder responses were encouraging; many of them committed to working together at the district, regional, and national levels to improve nutrition.

“To reduce our health burden, we need to take a serious look at nutrition, especially for children in their first years of life. Ours is a young deprived district and we are very happy to be getting support from USAID. The assembly will ensure that all the departments work collaboratively towards improving nutrition,” says the Hon. Abu Adams, district chief executive for Mamprugu Moagduri in the North East Region.

USAID Advancing Nutrition provides technical support and assessment services to the Government of Ghana to improve district planning for equitable delivery of services that promote household resilience and early childhood growth and development. This includes strong emphasis on strengthening district-level decision-making on program planning, financing, and implementation for nutrition and resilience.

USAID Advancing Nutrition also supports NDCP to develop food security and nutrition guidance and tools. These will help metropolitan, municipal, and district assemblies to integrate multi-sectoral, evidence-based nutrition strategies into their medium-term development plans.

Learn more about what USAID Advancing Nutrition in Ghana expects to achieve by March 2022.