Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Resource Review
The authors of this commentary propose a revision to UNICEF’s malnutrition conceptual framework, adding responsive care, learning opportunities, and safety and security components to health and nutrition. They suggest that by combining these elements, the revised framework will better promote children’s growth, nutritional status, and neurodevelopment, helping children to thrive, not just survive.
Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Resource Review
An analysis of longitudinal information on preschool-age children and their households in Ghana informs this study. Authors focus on the relationship between three levels of food-insecure households and early childhood development domains across three years. They conclude that children from households with transitory food insecurity—food insecurity that only occurs in one wave—experienced decreased numeracy, short-term memory, self-regulation, and literacy.
Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Resource Review
Researchers evaluated 32 responsive caregiving and early learning projects in 17 low- and middle-income countries on 4 continents to identify human resources and curricula critical for program implementation. Human resources themes that emerged range from worker characteristics and incentives to training and supervision.
Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Resource Review
COVID-19 threatens women’s and girls’ health, nutrition, development, and gender equality gains. Financial hardships, overwhelmed health systems, and reduced access to health services compound these threats. Priority actions include providing additional nutritional supplements and counseling, integrating nutrition messages during cash distribution, and holding catch-up child health and immunization campaigns. Countries need data, analytics, and technical assistance to make informed decisions about reducing risk and allocating resources.
Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Resource Review
COVID-19 impacts income and affordable nutritious food, and many food producers and sellers are struggling to survive. Health systems and social safety nets are overwhelmed, many are reluctant to seek health care, and misinformation hinders breastfeeding. While demand for humanitarian assistance grows, safe delivery is a challenge. USAID partners are working with food producers to determine consumer nutrition needs and providing counseling about nutrition and COVID-19 transmission via cell phones, radio, and social media.
Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Resource Review
The U.S. Agency for International Development predicts that 148 million additional people may fall into extreme poverty and that emergency food assistance needs will increase by 25% due to COVID-19. This collection provides information and resources related to food security, nutrition, and safe and sustainable access to water, sanitation, and hygiene and highlights the role well-functioning markets and supply chains must play, both of which are impacted by COVID-19.
Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Resource Review
This Learning Hub disseminates lessons learned about how to prevent widespread hunger, poverty, malnutrition, and water insecurity. It also provides guidance about how to mitigate and respond to the pandemic’s impacts through agriculture, nutrition, resilience, and water security, sanitation, and hygiene policy and programming. Current resources focus on digital tools, how markets can improve resilience, gender-responsive COVID-19 policies, and acute food insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa.
Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Resource Review
Digital technologies to increase sustainable healthy diets and progressively realize the right to adequate food are powerful but may also have adverse impacts. This collection focuses on digital food marketing to young people, using mobile-phone technology to change behavior, improving nutrition and health data to and from remote regions, and harnessing artificial intelligence to achieve healthy and sustainable food systems.
Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Resource Review
USAID implementing partners from several countries in Africa and Asia described country-specific efforts to respond to shocks due to COVID-19. Examples include business cooperation between online foodservice delivery platforms and local dairy processors, online cattle trading systems, procurement and distribution of personal protective equipment to thousands of female community health volunteers, new phone infrastructure to report domestic violence, new COVID-19 episodes to augment current radio programming, and the use of megaphones to deliver nutrition messaging door to door.
Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Resource Review
COVID-19 will drive 70–100 million people into poverty and 80–130 million into chronic hunger. These impacts will persist beyond 2021, the number of malnourished children will increase, and access to water and sanitation services will decrease. Priorities for mitigating impacts include averting the need for additional humanitarian assistance and preventing food crises that may contribute to political unrest. Country-specific case studies focus on operational and programmatic pivots.