NOW AVAILABLE: Nourishing Millions, Stories of Change in Nutrition

On 29 June 2016, the book Nourishing Millions: Stories of Change in Nutrition was launched in Washington DC by Transform Nutrition, a consortium led by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). Nourishing Millions brings together the most intriguing stories about improving nutrition from the past five decades. These stories provide insight into what works in nutrition, what does not, and the factors that contribute to success. The event featured highlights from the book followed by discussion on how to scale up as well as accelerate progress on nutrition.

Six speakers at the event included Stuart Gillespie, one of the books editors who is a senior research fellow with IFPRI, the current CEO of Transform Nutrition and Research Director of the LANSA Consortium (Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia). David Nabarro gave a video message on how we can scale up action against malnutrition to realize the 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development and Climate Changeand Tom Arnold, SUN Movement Coordinator shared perspectives on how SUN is scaling up investment in nutrition and can contribute to accelerating progress.

In recent years, the discourse around nutrition has, at a global level, gained major political momentum. Yet although there is substantial evidence on what is needed to improve nutrition outcomes, less is known about how to achieve it: how to operationalize actions effectively across sectors, at the appropriate scale, in line with local contexts, and in ways that link nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive interventions.  To fill this knowledge gap, Transform Nutrition identified a need for more experiential learning—that is, learning based on the experiences of policymakers, implementers, and nutrition leaders in formulating and implementing nutrition-relevant policies and programs.

The stories of change captured in Nourishing Millions use a structured, systematic, and comparative approach to document change in nutrition-relevant policy and practice at different levels, with a strong emphasis on facilitating shared learning across countries. Successfully undertaking the stories of change research required the use of both secondary and primary data sources and involved the application and adaptation of a set of analytical tools, frameworks, and methods to assess and analyze changes and challenges in the case study countries. Previously, this type of study has rarely been undertaken in a comprehensive manner. Various country case studies of progress in addressing undernutrition have been developed in the past (see Gillespie, Mason, and Martorell [1996] and the UN Standing Committee on Nutrition [SCN] case studies of the early 1990s and mid-2000s).

The 19 Chapters of Nourishing Millions cover the nutrition discourse from transforming nutrition interventions on the front line to leading the way forward for nutrition in the 21st century. Country case studies featured in Part III of the book on transforming national policy and programming include:

• Local to National: Thailand’s Integrated Nutrition Program[Download]
• Nutrition and Equality: Brazil’s Success in Reducing Stunting among the Poorest [Download]
• Getting to Specifics: Bangladesh’s Evolving Nutrition Policies [Download]
• Reaching New heights: 20 Years of Nutrition Progress in Nepal [Download]
• Commitments and Accountability: Peru’s Unique Nutrition Journey [Download]
• On the Fast Track: Driving Down Stunting in Vietnam [Download]
• Agriculture, WASH and Safety Nets: Ethiopia’s Multisector Story [Download]
• 25 Years of Scaling Up: Nutrition and Health Interventions in Odisha, India [Download]

Download the synopsis: English | Français | Español (428 KB) | 中文

Download the book: English

This book is edited by Stuart Gillespie, Judith Hodge, Sivan Yosef, and Rajul Pandya-Lorch.

Learn more at the Nourishing Millions website

Read a discussion paper published in 2015 about the methods used to develop the stories of change: ‘Stories of Change in nutrition’ A Tool Pool

 About Transform Nutrition

Transform Nutrition is led by the International Food Policy Research Institute and the Transform Nutrition consortium is made of up of five organisations, each with their own distinct roles. The Transform Nutrition management team, drawn from these organisations, leads the day-to-day work and a steering group, with representatives from each of the organisations, guides their work. Transform Nutrition is a six-year research consortium funded with aid from the UK government. Transform Nutrition aims to transform thinking and action on nutrition and strengthen nutrition-relevant evidence to accelerate undernutrition reduction in South Asia and Africa south of the Sahara. For more information, visit www.transformnutrition.org.