GAIN Briefing Paper n°14: Issues In the Design & Delivery of Interventions to Improve Rural Diets in Low- and Lower-Middle-Income Countries


Improving the quality of diets for rural populations is a key priority for many organisations – such as donors, implementing NGOs, and governments – in the nutrition sector. However, success at scale has been elusive.
GAIN, with the support of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, embarked on a project to improve understanding of how to succeed at scale in rural settings. Eight other organisations (see background) also joined in this effort to pool their knowledge and experiences. Wellspring carried out a literature review in April-May 2024 and facilitated an in-person workshop in Utrecht in May 2024. This was followed by six online calls that focused on deeper discussion on six key topics identified based on the learning until then: dietary quality; segmentation; markets; scale; orchestration; and trade-offs.
Each topic has been covered under a separate GAIN convening paper. This overview aims to provide a short summary of each of the six topics.