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Investing in the Data Value Chain for nutrition in West Africa: a Call To Action

14 June 2020

by Roos Verstraeten (TNWA/IFPRI), Rebecca Heidkamp (DataDENT) and Barbara Baille (UNICEF) The Together for Nutrition: West African Data Forum was convened in Saly, Senegal in February 2020 by a group of regional and global partners. The group was led by Transform Nutrition West Africa, an initiative of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and…

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Nigerian experiences shared at milestone Data Forum on nutrition action in West Africa

28 April 2020

By Namukolo Covic (A4NH/IFPRI), Rebecca Heidkamp (Johns Hopkins University) The late UN Secretary General Kofi Annan once said– “Without good data we’re flying blind!” The Together 4 Nutrition Data Forum took place in Senegal in February 2020. This data forum was a significant milestone towards the goal of “Making better use of data and generating…

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COVID-19, Food and Nutrition in West Africa: potential impacts and resources

13 April 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to generate unprecedented global impacts. Much has already been written about potential interactions with food and nutrition security. To date, this has largely comprised questions and hypotheses, as well as experiences and lessons learnt from past epidemics. Many organizations have a dedicated web page, including IFPRI.  On 1 April, Lancet Global…

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Time to act on malnutrition in all its forms in West Africa

7 February 2020

By Roos Verstraeten The World Health Organization (WHO) has characterized the double burden of malnutrition (DBM) as “the coexistence of undernutrition (i.e. micronutrient deficiencies, underweight, and childhood stunting and wasting), along with overweight and obesity, or diet-related noncommunicable diseases, within individuals, households and populations, and across the life course”. These forms of malnutrition are no…

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Transform Nutrition West Africa at the 16th ECOWAS Nutrition Forum

27 January 2020

By Loty Diop and Roos Verstraeten Transform Nutrition West Africa participated in the 16th ECOWAS Forum on Nutrition held in Monrovia from the 18th to 20th November 2019 on the theme “Adolescent Nutrition: Institutionalizing sustainable actions for improved outcomes in West Africa”. The forum, which is held every two years, is a regional platform that…

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Transform Nutrition West Africa’s Stories of Change in Nutrition – the story so far in Ghana and Burkina Faso

14 January 2020

By Richmond Aryeetey, Olutayo Adeyemi, Mara Van Den Bold, Elodie Becquey. Nick Nisbett, Zusia Turowska The ‘stories of change in nutrition’ initiative is a series of studies designed to systematically assess and analyse drivers of change in countries that have had success in accelerating improvements in nutrition. The multi-methods approach, which combines data and policy…

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Training to lead nutrition change in West Africa

13 November 2019

by Namukolo Covic, October 2019 The Transform Nutrition West Africa project teamed up with the African Nutrition Leadership Programme (ANLP) to facilitate the capacity strengthening course  “Leading Change in Nutrition”. Twenty participants from 8 countries (Benin, Mali, Togo, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, Nigeria and Burkina Faso) participated in the 5-day short course in Saly, Senegal and…

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Transform Nutrition West Africa at the Nutrition Society of Nigeria Annual Conference

23 October 2019

By Olutayo Adeyemi, Namukolo Covic, Folake Samuel and Roos Verstraeten Transform Nutrition West Africa organized 2 sessions at the Nutrition Society of Nigeria Annual Conference in Abuja, September 2019. Dr Olutayo Adeyemi, who leads the data collection for Transform Nutrition West Africa’s Stories of Change project in Nigeria, made two plenary presentations. These focused on…

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Spotlight on Burkina Faso: nutrition strategies and actions

14 October 2019

By Leah Salm and Roos Verstraeten What are the key ingredients for prioritizing nutrition in policy – both at a national and local level? Recent research has shined a spotlight on this process in Burkina Faso. Transform Nutrition West Africa’s evidence brief strengthens and widens our understanding of the current direction of nutrition-relevant policy in…

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We need better data for use, and we need better use of data

1 July 2019

To turn a commitment to scale up nutrition into reality, we need high-quality actionable data – in the right places at the right times. Without this, we are at best myopic, and at worst, flying blind. Data are needed to characterize different types of nutrition problems, to highlight magnitude, distribution, and variability, over time and…