Transform Nutrition West Africa Update February 2020

View this email in your browser

Issue 6 February 2020

This sixth issue of our regular update focuses on a very topical issue – the double burden of malnutrition - 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 Nabou Tall N.Tall@cgiar.org

Spotlight on the double burden of malnutrition

Undernutrition along with overweight and obesity now frequently coexist in low- and middle-income settings, signaling a nutritional epidemiological shift. This spotlight highlights recent evidence on the Double Burden of Malnutrition (DBM) in West Africa and emphasizes the need to advance the evidence to help us understand what drives the DBM and the potential interventions appropriate to the West African context.

NEWS from Transform Nutrition West Africa

Together for Nutrition: West African Data Forum

TNWA is co-hosting the Together for Nutrition: West African Data Forum with partners (UNICEF, Countdown to 2030, CDC, USAID, WHO, WAHO, DataDENT and NIPN) this month in Saly, Senegal. The Forum will gather 100 key actors to share some of the most significant experiences in operationalizing the data value chain for nutrition in the West Africa region. The event aims to strengthen connectivity, coordination, and collaboration on data-driven nutrition-relevant action and formulate calls for action in West Africa.

Stories of Change in Nutrition in Ghana and Burkina Faso

Stories of Change in Nutrition aims to systematically assess and analyse drivers of change in countries that have had success in accelerating improvements in nutrition. Studies in Ghana and Burkina Faso are nearing completion and we reflect on their findings here. The research leads on the Stories of Change Ghana presented study findings at a National Nutrition Forum on 21^st January in Accra, Ghana. The study seeks to identify what has driven significant reduction in child stunting in the past decade (2009 -2018) and to understand why child anemia has remained high during the same period.

SUN Global Gathering

The SUN Movement Global Gathering held in Kathmandu in November 2019 brought together over 1,200 participants. Transform Nutrition West Africa researchers led a workshop drawing on past and ongoing Stories of Change studies (including the Ghana study), which highlighted lessons learnt over the last 10-15 years on what drives progress in reducing childhood stunting.

16th ECOWAS Nutrition Forum

Transform Nutrition West Africa was represented at the 16th ECOWAS Forum on Nutrition held in November in Monrovia on the theme “Adolescent Nutrition: Institutionalizing sustainable actions for improved outcomes in West Africa”. TNWA researchers presented a review on adolescent nutrition which aims to identify and catalog peer-reviewed research on adolescent nutrition in West Africa and create a map of recent research evidence to inform policy decisions and identify further research needs for policies and programs on adolescent nutrition in the region.

Upcoming events in the region

13 February 2020, Dakar IFPRI West and Central Africa Office and the Poverty, Health and Nutrition Division (PHND) will be hosting a policy Seminar on Integrated Cash Transfer Programs in West Africa to provide evidence on the impacts of integrated programs implemented in West Africa and discuss program design and policy options to make them more nutrition-sensitive.
The 1st FOOD meeting, convened by UNICEF, will take place in Dakar, Senegal on 18-21 February 2020. This Regional Consultative Meeting on Improving Young Children’s Diets seeks to build consensus and disseminate findings on the key drivers, gaps and bottlenecks to improve diets of young children in the West and Central Africa Region.

NEWS from partners and the region

WAHO collaborated with Countdown to 2030 to deliver the Second Nutrition Data Analysis Workshop, a regional initiative to strengthen the data analytical capacity and evidence for Nutrition in West Africa. Workshop participants performed country and regional analyses on inequalities in nutrition to strengthen their analytical skills in survey data interpretation and communication of results and produce key elements of joint scientific papers with regional synthesis analyses.

UNICEF have launched a regional campaign for exclusive breastfeeding in West and Central Africa, in partnership with WHO and Alive & Thrive. Stronger with Breast milk Only aims to achieve the global target of at least 50 per cent of infants under six months of age being exclusively breastfed by 2025 in West in Central African countries.

In advance of the United Nations High-Level Meeting on Universal Health Coverage, Action Against Hunger, the Eleanor Crook Foundation, and UNICEF held a roundtable to spotlight community-based solutions to acute malnutrition. Panelists discussed Action Against Hunger’s work in Mali, which expanded a community health workers’ package of interventions to include both diagnosis of malnutrition and its treatment. Working together with the Malian Government, Moràn and colleagues found promising results: 95% of malnourished children treated by community health workers in the community recovered, compared with 88% of those who were treated in health centers.

Nutrition International launched a new online tool, which will help governments determine the health benefits and budget impact of transitioning from iron and folic acid supplementation (IFAS) to multiple micronutrient supplementation (MMS) in their maternal health programs.

The Data for Nutrition (DfN) Community of Practice is being organized by DataDENT with initial financial support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. DfN is intended to serve the global community working in nutrition data and welcomes contributions and active engagement from any programs or individuals working with and for nutrition data. A recording of the first webinar can be viewed on the Data for Nutrition YouTube channel. Please complete this form to receive notifications on the public launch.

EVIDENCE

The following seven 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:

New research reports on the Adherence and acceptability of community‐based distribution of micronutrient powders in Southern Mali through a cross-sectional and qualitative evaluation. Maternal & Child Health
Further research on micronutrient powders (combined with behaviour change communication) finds marginally improved child feeding practices and growth, without increasing morbidity from malaria or fever: Micronutrient powder supplements combined with nutrition education marginally improve growth amongst children aged 6-23 months in rural Burkina Faso: A cluster randomized controlled trial Maternal & Child Nutrition
The SNACK intervention in rural Mali found that: Conditional cash transfer and/or lipid-based nutrient supplement targeting the first 1000 d of life increased attendance at preventive care services but did not improve linear growth in young children in rural Mali: results of a cluster-randomized controlled trial. Implementation constraints and suboptimal participation in program are suggested explanations for the lack of impact on child linear growth The American journal of clinical nutrition.
Hepcidin-guided screen-and-treat interventions against iron-deficiency anaemia in pregnancy: a randomised controlled trial in The Gambia found no advantage over current WHO recommended regimen in terms of adherence, side-effects, or safety outcomes and therefore recommends that the current WHO policy for iron administration to pregnant women should remain unchanged while more effective approaches should continue to be sought. Lancet Global Health
A secondary analysis of randomized control data explores the relationship between stunting and wasting in Niger: Linear growth faltering and the role of weight attainment: Prospective analysis of young children recovering from severe wasting in Niger Maternal & Child Nutrition
A mixed-method research explores climate change and food and nutrition security in small-scale farming households in Ghana and recommends education and adoption of modern technologies to maintain livelihood security. Climate change and food and nutrition security in the Bibiani-Anhwiaso Bekwai district in the Western Region of Ghana Cogent Environmental Science
An mHealth voice messaging intervention to improve infant and young child feeding practices in Senegal finds potential to improve behaviours among young children in the short term and recommends that future research should focus on scaling‐up the intervention and examining its sustainability over the long‐term. Maternal & Child Nutrition

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

A Ghana case study from IFPRI Engaging nutrition stakeholders in Poyentanga: A case study on local-level multisector coordination.
Examining the implementation of multisectoral programs: The SELEVER process evaluation IFPRI discussion paper from Burkina Faso.
Africa Rising have produced a report on Perceived effect of feed-health intervention for improved small ruminant production on gender and household nutrition in northern Ghana.
UNICEF have launched their 2019 edition of The State of the World’s Children which examines the issue of children, food and nutrition, providing a fresh perspective on a rapidly evolving challenge, the double burden of malnutrition. It also outlines a number of recommendations to put children’s rights at the heart of food systems. (see their regional profile for West and Central Africa).

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.