Source: flickr (Pippa Ranger/DFID)
MOTIVATION
Despite rapid economic growth in recent decades, India still faces persistent and widespread malnutrition. The lack of progress in reducing high national rates of child stunting, underweight, and wasting, along with elevated levels of malnutrition among the general population, has been dubbed by many the "Indian enigma."
The Partnerships and Opportunities to Strengthen and Harmonize Actions for Nutrition in India (POSHAN) serves as IFPRI's primary platform for research and policy engagement on nutrition in India and falls within the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH), led by IFPRI. It is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in collaboration with the Institute of Development Studies in Sussex, United Kingdom and the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI). POSHAN is a four-year initiative (2011-2015) that builds evidence on effective ways to improve nutrition and supports the use of this evidence in decisionmaking. It also aims to build upon the existing knowledge base to spur action on nutrition in India and, as part of this work, brings together diverse stakeholders from varied contexts within the country.
A series of activities have been undertaken to assess the current landscape for addressing undernutrition in India and to develop a set of strategic priorities for POSHAN’s knowledge generation and collection. The findings of the landscape analysis reaffirmed that although there is considerable demand for and use of scientific evidence, substantial gaps in evidence-synthesis, evidence-building, information sharing, and learning systems remain.
OUTCOMES
- In 2012, the POSHAN team, based primarily at the IFPRI-New Delhi office, completed a review of nutrition programs and policies in India in order to compile lessons learned on how to deliver large-scale, evidence-based interventions within the country. The project team also completed a stakeholder mapping exercise and held a substantial national consultation in mid-2012 to share these findings.
- POSHAN researchers have strengthened relationships between IFPRI and stakeholders throughout the nutrition landscape in India.
- In mid-2013, an event to share findings of the review on multi-sectoral actions for nutrition brought together senior staff from various ministries and the Planning Commission. In early 2014, the Indian government requested POSHAN to help plan the launch event for the Multisectoral Nutrition Programme to Address Maternal and Child Undernutrition and to share outputs on multisectoral actions for nutrition and a policy note summarizing key insights.
- In late 2013, the POSHAN team and key partners organized a technical workshop on improving nutrition in Odisha for the Odisha state government.
- POSHAN was invited to support the development of the vision document for the nutrition mission of Uttar Pradesh, the largest state in India. Both POSHAN and IFPRI were explicitly mentioned in a memo from the Uttar Pradesh government on the minutes of the technical committee review of this document.
- POSHAN collaborated with the Transform Nutrition Consortium in hosting a large conference, Transforming Nutrition, in New Delhi in October 2014, which was attended by Representatives from 14 states, and garnered policy and media attention.
