Transform Nutrition West Africa Update

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Issue 5 October 2019

This fifth issue of our regular update focuses on Burkina Faso policy and interventions alongside our usual roundup of relevant news, upcoming events, and other new nutrition evidence relevant to the West Africa region. Please share any feedback, news, or events with Samantha Reddin s.reddin@ids.ac.uk

Spotlight on Burkina Faso

What are the key ingredients for prioritising nutrition in policy – both at a national and local level? Recent research has shined a spotlight on this process in Burkina Faso. One example is a publication from Dr Ouedraogo and colleagues on lessons learned from a multisectoral nutrition planning process in Burkina Faso, which Dr Ouedraogo hopes ‘could improve the multisectoral nutrition planning process in other SUN countries and inform the design of similar studies’. As well as research on nutrition policy, new evidence has emerged from various nutrition-relevant interventions in Burkina Faso. Read more in the blog.

NEWS from Transform Nutrition West Africa

Together for Nutrition: West African Data Forum

11-12 February 2020 will see key actors meet in Senegal to share experiences in the generation, analysis and use of data for policy and programming to improve Maternal, Infant and Young Child Nutrition in West Africa. This regional event Together for Nutrition: West African Data Forum is organised by Transform Nutrition West Africa and a number of regional partners.

Nutrition Policy in West Africa

Transform Nutrition West Africa has published a new Evidence Note Nutrition Policy in West Africa to strengthen and widen understanding of the current direction of regional nutrition-relevant policy in West Africa and its implications.

Leading Change in Nutrition

The next Transform Nutrition West Africa leadership development course is taking place in Dakar, Senegal, this week 21–25 October 2019. The twenty-two candidates are a mix of nutrition specialists from international organisations, government agencies, and self-employed nutrition advocates from eight francophone countries in West Africa.

Nutrition Society of Nigeria

Representatives of Transform Nutrition West Africa presented their ‘Stories of Change in Nigeria’ research at this annual conference in September. The urgency to find and implement solutions to issues raised and documented through research was stressed. Read the blog.

Upcoming events in the region

The 16th ECOWAS Nutrition Forum – to be held in Monrovia, Liberia, 18–20 November 2019 – will focus on adolescent nutrition. This biennial event brings together nutrition decision makers and technical experts from governments, development partners, regional bodies, academics, NGOs, civil society and the private sector to review programmes and advocate strategies to improve food and nutrition security in the ECOWAS region. Transform Nutrition West Africa is a member of the international planning committee for the event, and will present some of its work on adolescent nutrition.
UNICEF’s regional high-level technical and advocacy event: Creating Breastfeeding-Friendly Systems in the West and Central Africa Region, to be held in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, 11–15 November 2019. In collaboration with the World Health Organization and Alive & Thrive, UNICEF is organising this regional workshop which aims to:
   Execute a high-level launch of the regional No Water Campaign;
   Integrate and prioritise breastfeeding managerial procedures and clinical practice within Maternal, Newborn and Child Health plans and elevate these themes as part of an overall system strengthening approach; and
   Work with parliamentarians to build momentum and capacity to conduct advocacy for system strengthening with a focus on the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes.
For more information, contact Noel Marie Zagre, Regional Nutrition Adviser, nzagre@unicef.org
This year’s SUN Global Gathering will be held in Kathmandu, Nepal, 4–7 November 2019. This annual meeting is an important moment in the year for nutrition where members take stock of progress and challenges, share their innovations, and learn what is helping to reduce malnutrition across all SUN countries. Transform Nutrition West Africa will be leading a workshop called ‘How to Accelerate Progress in Nutrition: A Stunting Deep Dive’ on 6 November, which will present research from the TNWA Stories of Challenge case studies.
Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH) will host a policy seminar at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington DC on 14 November to discuss Country perspectives on food systems. Nigeria will be one of the case studies presented. To attend either in person or remotely, see the A4NH website for details (forthcoming).
The Planetary Health Conference 2020 will be held in Banjul, The Gambia, 22–24 January 2020 on the theme: Climate Change and Planetary Health in West Africa: Reviewing the Evidence; Identifying the Gaps; and Finding the Solution.

NEWS from partners and the region

The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2019, which monitors progress towards the SDG targets of ending both hunger and all forms of malnutrition, has been published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the International Fund for Agricultural Development,
UNICEF, the World Food Programme and the World Health Organization.

The second National Forum for Nutrition closed in Bamako in July with a strong commitment from the Republic of Mali and other stakeholders to ensure nutrition is a political and financial priority.

A useful booklet of presentations from the 2019 Agriculture, Nutrition and Health Academy Week is now available, with a number of them focusing on West Africa including:

Exploring Multi-Sector Programming for Nutrition at District Level in Senegal, Nepal and Kenya
Implementation of Healthy Food Environment Policies in Ghana: Gaps and Priorities to Prevent Nutrition-Related Non-Communicable Diseases
Sustainability of Community-Level Approaches to Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture: A Case Study from Côte d’Ivoire
Effects of Rainfall Shocks on Child Nutrition in Senegal
Healthy Diets and Reduced Land Pressure: Towards a Double Gain for Future Food Systems in Nigeria
Impact of Smallholder Farmers’ Participation in Contract Farming on Food and Nutrition Security Outcomes in Northwestern Nigeria
Food Away from Home in Nigeria: Consumption, Drivers and Nutritional Implications of Within-Day Meals

EVIDENCE

The following six peer-reviewed studies have been selected, as they demonstrate rigor in their methods, highlight areas of concern, and identify new knowledge for future action in the West Africa region:

Estimating the Double Burden of Malnutrition among 595,975 Children in 65 Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Meta-Analysis of Demographic and Health Surveys International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Effect of Iron-Fortified Flour on Iron Status of Populations Worldwide Public Health Nutrition
A Qualitative Study to Understand how Ebola Virus Disease Affected Nutrition in Sierra Leone – A Food Value-Chain Framework for Improving Future Response Strategies PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases
Impact on Child Acute Malnutrition of Integrating Small-Quantity Lipid-Based Nutrient Supplements into Community-Level Screening for Acute Malnutrition: A Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial in Mali PLOS Medicine. See also IFPRI blog.
Acceptability and Utilization of a Lipid-Based Nutrient Supplement Formulated for Pregnant Women in Rural Niger: A Multi-Methods Study BMC Nutrition
Program Impact Pathway Analysis Reveals Implementation Challenges that Limited the Incentive Value of Conditional Cash Transfers Aimed at Improving Maternal and Child Health Care Use in Mali Current Developments in Nutrition

We have also highlighted a number of insightful recent reports and web articles, including:

The Food Systems Decision-Support Tool (FSDS) from Wageningen University. This descriptive analysis is based on secondary data and key informant interviews in Burkina Faso and Niger.
Also from Wageningen University, Enhancing Food Systems in Nigeria: Scope and Perspective for Dutch Policy Interventions. The FSDS tool has been applied here to provide a quick scan of the food system and identify leverage points to inform policy recommendations for the Dutch Government.
Multisector Programmes at the Sub-National Level: A Case Study of the Communes de Convergence Approach in Maradi, Niger from the Emergency Nutrition Network (ENN) and UK Aid.
Temperature and Children’s Nutrition: Evidence from West Africa. This report from the African Development Bank explores whether temperatures above 30°C negatively affect children’s nutritional status.
The WHO-UNICEF Technical Expert Advisory Group on Nutrition Monitoring has released a set of Recommendations for Data Collection, Analysis and Reporting on Anthropometric Indicators in Children Under 5 Years Old.
A new study and series of detailed, interactive maps from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) track nationwide exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) across 49 African nations and highlight the equity gaps that exist even within nations, marking progress toward achieving the World Health Assembly (WHA) goal of 50 per cent national EBF by 2025. In countries like Senegal, Angola and Tanzania there are simultaneously communities with less than 5 per cent probability of meeting the WHA target and others with a greater than 95 per cent probability – underlining that while some communities are rapidly progressing and benefiting from the nutritional and health benefits of EBF, there are many other being left behind.
The World Health Organization has updated its Essential Nutrition Actions publication which provides a compilation of actions to address malnutrition in all its forms, in a concise and user-friendly format. This can help in decision-making processes for integration of nutrition interventions in national health policies, strategies, and plans based on country-specific needs and global priorities.

About Transform Nutrition West Africa

Transform Nutrition West Africa is a regional platform to enable effective policy and programmatic action on nutrition, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation from 2017–2021 and led by the International Food Policy Research Institute. We want you to join us and be part of a network of people and organisations in West Africa using evidence to generate change.

About this update

This Transform Nutrition West Africa Update features news and summaries of articles published in peer-reviewed journals as well as grey literature, including reports, briefs, or other forms of evidence from researchers, NGOs, or other organizations/institutions. The presented studies were selected as they demonstrated rigor in their methods and analysis, and relevance to the region and target audience of Transform Nutrition West Africa. There are two main sections: peer-reviewed article summaries and grey literature summaries (from websites and google scholar).This publication has been prepared by Transform Nutrition West Africa and has not been peer-reviewed. Any opinions stated herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the policies of the International Food Policy Research Institute.