The world is facing multiple interconnected crises, including climate change and escalating conflicts, which pose significant challenges to food systems. These issues highlight the need for systemic transformation to improve food security, nutrition, and environmental sustainability. In response, GAIN's Nourishing Food Pathways (NFP) programme aims to strengthen and support the implementation of food system pathways in 11 countries.
One focus of NFP is exploring the intersection between food and environment, including climate change, to identify consumer actions that promote both nutrition and environmental sustainability in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Specifically, GAIN is interested in understanding if our Emotivate™ approach, which leverages emotions to motivate consumers to want better diets, can be extended to include emotions or values associated with environmental sustainability. Our initial hypothesis was that consumers felt emotional tensions related to environmental sustainability as a driver of food choices, which could be leveraged to develop an emotionally resonant campaign.
WHA Global Nutrition Stunting Target 2012-2025
Achieve a 40% reduction in the number of children under-5 who are stunted
WHA Global Nutrition Overweight Target 2012-2025
Ensure that there is no increase in childhood overweight
Participatory Open Access Food Systems Dashboard Empowers South
Foresight analysis of diet transformation in Bangladesh_A scenario simulation study
To successfully execute Bangladesh’s National Pathway for the Sustainable, Equitable and Resilient Food Systems Transformation, it is conducive for all actors in the food system to have consistent and easy-to-access data for informed decision-making. To meet this need, the Government of Bangladesh and the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) in collaboration with the Columbia Climate School, FAO, different ministries including Prime Minister’s Office, Ministry of Planning, Ministry of Agriculture, and other relevant ministries, departments, agencies, development partners, academia, and private sector developed the Bangladesh Food Systems Dashboard (BDFSD) integrating national and subnational level data.
In 2019, in an effort to improve the efficiency and sustainability of its programming, GAIN’s Workforce Nutrition Programme (WFN) shifted away from the traditional project development and evaluation cycle towards a nimbler "Quality Improvement" (QI) approach.
As elaborated in a GAIN evidence brief, poor-quality diets and insufficient food quantity are linked to reduced work capacity. This suggests that the malnutrition burden can be partly addressed through a win-win-win approach which improves individual lives, business outcomes, and national economies.
In 2018 GAIN Bangladesh began implementing an adolescent nutrition programme titled ‘Nourishing Dreams’. This was designed in partnership with adolescents themselves, and has at its core making a pledge to eat better and work towards improving availability of healthier food in their surroundings.
GAIN, BRAC, SMC, Renata, a Bangladeshi pharmaceuticals company, icddr,b and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), set out to evaluate whether such a programme could reach those who are vulnerable, whether they were impactful and whether they were good value for money compared to other routes to improved nutrition outcomes.
GAIN, together with implementing partners along with responsible Brands and Buyers worked collectively with the Government of Bangladesh (GOB)1 to incorporate workforce nutrition programs as a priority.
