Despite limited progress to date, we now see a growing political commitment to address the high rates of maternal and child undernutrition in the West African region. Such commitment needs to be effectively translated into appropriate policy choices and effective program action, if it is to generate major large-scale and sustained change.
Recognizing this, Transform Nutrition West Africa (2017-2021) aims to improve and support policy and program decisions and actions to accelerate reductions in maternal and child undernutrition. This will be achieved through an inclusive process of knowledge generation and mobilization.
The overall approach will be guided by the context in West Africa and in high-burden countries where more intensive work will be done, including Burkina Faso, Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal. We know that knowledge derives from both evidence and experience and Transform Nutrition West Africa will focus on ‘knowledge for action’. There are two core objectives:
a) to assess and analyze nutrition-relevant data and actions (programs and policies) to generate knowledge on optimal approaches to improving maternal and child nutrition; and
b) to mobilize knowledge to strengthen enabling environments, and inform and improve nutrition-relevant policy and programming.
Download a one-page summary flyer about the project