BlogOctober 2022
Making healthy diets the easy...
On World Food Day, SNV reaffirms its support to provide consumers with access to...
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Our approach encourages diverse, more nutritious diets. We build local capacity to trigger demand for diverse diets by working with communities, raising awareness on the risks of stunting, and enabling them to create solutions to improve local hygiene and nutritious behaviour.
We also empower local authorities to continue to implement this community work. On the supply side we help smallholder farmers to diversify into nutrient-rich vegetable and food crops. By working to understand the multiple factors involved in improving nutrition, we also learn how best to induce behavioural change. In particular, we focus on the influence of gender relations on nutrition.
The challenge
One in three people worldwide is affected by malnutrition. The consequences are pervasive yet often hidden. Undernutrition stunts growth, erodes child devel-opment, affects education and increases the likelihood of poverty in adulthood. It persists across generations and hampers the successful economic development of many countries. Despite making big strides in reducing hunger, many children remain stunted due to malnutrition. Experience however shows that just providing information and increasing knowledge rarely leads to behaviour change.
Our product
Our Sustainable Nutrition for All approach intervenes at an emotional level. By showing a direct connection between diet and stunting in their children, parents are jolted into adopting new dietary habits. Our approach is based on our extensive experience in sanitation, food security, value chain development, climate smart agriculture and gender. Sustainable Nutrition for All integrates efforts in social and behaviour change, demand creation, improved supply, and governance.
Our Sustainable Nutrition for All approach consists of the following elements:
- Triggering behaviour change: we show parents the effects of malnutrition such as stunt-ing and lower educational outcomes, on their children
- Creating demand: we facilitate people in the community to identify solutions to address their nutritional problems.
- Improved supply: we show people how they can grow nutritious food for themselves throughout the year, for example by establish-ing kitchen gardens.
- Pro-smallholder governance: to ensure the sustainability and scalability of our results, we work with local and district level authorities.