Communities in Bangladesh are using maps to improve kids nutrition—which meant that stunting went down 14 percentage points, and there was a 50% increase in kids getting balanced diets. How does it work? Community volunteers mapped where women who were pregnant or who had small children live—as well as people who had chronic problems not getting enough food. They then used the maps to see where the closest social services were, and worked with a variety of government ministries to connect people in need to the services that would help them.
Nutrition at the Center ran in Bangladesh from 2013-2017 with $3.6 million from the Sall Family Foundation and other donors. It reached nearly 70,000 people directly and more than 267,000 indirectly.
What did we accomplish?
- People are less hungry: There was a 36% decrease in the number of women who have Chronic Energy Deficiency—that is, who consistently don’t get enough food to eat to meet their calorie needs. The number of people who reported going days without food went down by 63%.
- Diets are more balanced: Women’s dietary diversity also went up 50%. There was a 63% increase in the number of kids under 2 getting an acceptable diet.
- Kids are taller and healthier: There was a 14.2 percentage point drop in stunting, and an 11.8% drop in the number of children who are too skinny for their age.
- Women are more empowered: There was a 60% increase in women who could make health care decisions, and a 57% increase in those who could make decisions about spending their own money. The endline numbers are 15.3% and 85% respectively, so there’s still room for improvement.
- People changed their attitudes about violence: The number of women who think it’s acceptable for men to hit them was cut in half.
- Influenced local and national policy: The government used the Nutrition at the Center model to Upazila Nutrition Coordination Committees to improve coverage and allocation of resources for nutrition service delivery. The program was recognized and staff were invited to make inputs to the National Nutrition Strategy. Local governments also allocated $7,500 to local groups to improve nutrition.
How did we get there?
- Help people grow and store more food: Families in the project were 35% more likely to have a kitchen garden than families who weren’t in the project. They were also 42% more likely to preserve and store food to help themselves during the hungry season.
- Work with the government: The project worked closely with the government to replicate models. This included building 434 tube wells and 8,426 latrines, and getting the government to pilot local government to pilot new kinds of toilets that are better suited to the local area.
- Get local service providers engaged: The project worked with approximately 300 MOHFW staff, 630 community volunteers and 66% of local NGOs in N@C programming areas in order to strengthen capacity to better deliver improved and integrated services to impact target populations.
- Get women leaders involved: The project trained 42 locally elected female Union Parishad members and CSG members on women’s empowerment including mobility, negotiation skills, and decision making skills around entitlement and rights.
- Work with men: Engage men in conversations around women’s empowerment issues including intra-household food distribution, decision making, and mobility.
Want to learn more?
Check out the final evaluation or the project webpage.