Celebrating Over a Decade of Global Nutrition Partnerships and Impact

A Community Agriculture Care Service Provider demonstrates nutrition-sensitive horticulture practices to women in the Goalpara district of Assam State, India.

JSI has led USAID Advancing Nutrition since September 2018 with the goal of making multi-sectoral nutrition a global standard and strengthening local capacity to implement evidence-based nutrition programs. On October 4, 2023, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), JSI, and global nutrition partners gathered for an end-of-project event to mark the USAID Advancing Nutrition’s conclusion and celebrate its successes.

Launched following the success of JSI’s seven-year global nutrition project, Strengthening Partnerships and Results in Nutrition Globally (SPRING), USAID Advancing Nutrition, USAID’s flagship multi-sectoral nutrition project, provided thought leadership to improve nutrition through stronger food and health systems and implemented diverse programs in 12 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

USAID Advancing Nutrition worked across a range of sectors and disciplines to address the multiple causes of malnutrition. The project’s multi-sectoral approach leveraged global nutrition expertise from the project’s nine consortium partners to design, implement, and evaluate programs tailored to the context and priorities of stakeholders in Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Honduras, India, Kenya, the Kyrgyz Republic, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda. The project also partnered with 751 organizations across 28 low- and middle-income countries to strengthen local capacity and achieve long-lasting results.

We’re really proud of the partnerships that blossomed and thrived under this project,” said Margaret Crotty, President and CEO, JSI.

The event highlighted USAID Advancing Nutrition’s broad expertise in health systems, food systems, nutrition in humanitarian contexts, early childhood development, capacity strengthening, and social and behavior change, as well as monitoring, evaluation, and learning.

Locally-led nutrition programming has been at the heart of our technical approach. Facilitating multi-stakeholder engagement to promote coordination and collaboration and building nutrition leadership has been critical to meeting our objectives,” said Heather Danton, USAID Advancing Nutrition project director.

Throughout this journey, USAID Advancing Nutrition has been committed to fostering positive change in global nutrition programming, generating evidence through new research and secondary analyses, improving nutrition measurement, and fostering collaboration, learning, and adaptation. The project has also advanced multi-sectoral nutrition programming by sharing knowledge and experience through a wide range of nutrition resources disseminated through webinars, social media, workshops, and global conferences.

This is a very complex field, with many challenges, and you have really forged a path forward for learning for better nutrition, better multi-sectoral programming, and better results,” said Kellie Stewart, Chief of the Nutrition and Environmental Health Division, USAID Bureau for Global Health.

To learn more about the project and resources, visit www.advancingnutrition.org.