Yezab Nega is a mother of six and a farmer who lives in the Southern Gonder region in Ethiopia. She no longer has to worry about her child’s nutritional needs due to her involvement in GTN’s nutritional village program.

Nutrition Programs

Growth Through Nutrition (GTN)

The USAID- and Feed the Future-funded Growth through Nutrition (GtN) (2016–2022) project in Ethiopia is a multi-sector, integrated nutrition program that aims to reduce stunting/chronic undernutrition by 20% and reach 28,000 poor/vulnerable households with nutrition and livelihood support in 120 districts (‘Woredas’) in six regions of Ethiopia.

Working with the Government of Ethiopia, the project focuses on first 1,000 days households to build and expand on the success and achievements of USAID’s flagship multi-sector nutrition project in Ethiopia, Empowering New Generations to Improve Nutrition and Economic Opportunities (ENGINE). GTN has a learning site with additional resources and reports: Welcome to Growth through Nutrition | Feed the Future Ethiopia Growth through Nutrition Activity.

Save the Children leads a consortium of partners to implement GTN in order to:

• Strengthen Government of Ethiopia capacity to develop and institutionalize national nutrition programs and policies.
• Increase access to diverse, safe, and quality food for rural communities.
• Improve nutrition and health care services.
• Implement comprehensive social and behavior change communications (SBCC) to promote optimal nutrition, water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH), and agriculture behaviors.
• Increase access to safe water.
• Leverage the private sector to increase access to products needed for improved uptake of WASH practices.
• Support gender and a robust nutrition learning agenda.

Neema weeding her cabbage plot in Tanzania - a practice to minimize the risks of pest and diseases. The proceeds from this farm supplements her household income.

Lishe Endelevu

In Tanzania, we lead Lishe Endelevu (2018–2023), a USAID-funded activity to intensify and integrate multi-sectoral nutrition support to decrease stunting and increase dietary diversity across four regions. Swahili for “sustainable nutrition”, Lishe Endelevu works at community, facility, and council levels to improve the nutritional status of women of reproductive age, children under five, and adolescent girls.

Save the Children works closely with consortium partners and the Government of Tanzania to strengthen capacity to improve government coordination, quality of health services, and community based social and behavior change (SBC) platforms that promote optimal nutrition and health behaviors, and positive shifts in gender norms. In 1,755 villages and more than 300 health facilities, Lishe Endelevu works to: 

• Strengthen multi-sectoral coordination for improved nutrition at local government level.
• Improve health, nutrition, caregiving and WASH behaviors.
• Increase access to and availability of diverse, safe and nutritious foods.

Alemu and his wife, Alemtsehay, practice crop rotation in their homestead garden where they've planted Swiss chard and pigeon pea provided by the project.

Nutrition Sensitive Agriculture Capacity Strengthening in Ethiopia (NSA CASE)

In Ethiopia, our Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-funded Nutrition Sensitive Agriculture Capacity Strengthening in Ethiopia (2019-2024) project funds capacity strengthening activities that integrate nutrition into large-scale agriculture programs, to enable the agriculture sector to effectively contribute to improving nutrition through improved dietary diversity. In line with the national Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture Strategy, through this nutrition-sensitive agriculture award we closely collaborate with the government of Ethiopia and issue sub-grants to support systems strengthening for nutrition-sensitive agriculture within the Ministry of Agriculture. Our focus includes:

• Resourcing the national Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture Strategy.
• Structuring human resources for nutrition-sensitive agriculture.
• Facilitating monitoring and evaluation and use of data for decision-making.
• Strengthening capacity building and coordination within the ministry, regional bureaus, and lower levels, as well as partners.

35-year-old Regina washes six-month-old Franque, in preparation for a hospital visit in Mozambique.

USAID Advancing Nutrition

As a partner on USAID Advancing Nutrition (2018-2023), the Agency's flagship multi-sectoral nutrition project, we assist in the implementation of the USAID Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Strategy 2014-2025 and build on the work conducted through current and previous nutrition investments. USAID Advancing Nutrition focuses on strengthening the enabling environment and supporting country-led scale-up of effective, integrated, sustainable nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive policies, programs, and systems to improve nutritional status and health in countries around the world. Save the Children is the lead organization in Mozambique and Kenya.

USAID Advancing Nutrition began work in Mozambique in August 2019 to:

1. Reduce child stunting and improve nutrition outcomes of pregnant and lactating women, adolescent girls, and children under five years of age in Nampula Province, the largest and most densely-populated province with the highest rate of undernutrition. The project provides technical assistance to the Government of Mozambique and the local partner-led USAID bi-lateral nutrition project, Transform Nutrition.
2. In addition, USAID Advancing Nutrition Mozambique hosts a significant activity funded by the USAID/Washington Center on Children in Adversity. This work focuses on strengthening Transform Nutrition and the government’s capacity to lead, coordinate, and deliver integrated programming to improve early childhood development (ECD) outcomes.

USAID Advancing Nutrition began work in Kenya in October 2020 to:

1. Implement a multi-sectoral nutrition activity spanning a two-year period to play a catalytic role with the Kenyan government and provide support for national and county leaders in Kakamega, Kisumu, and Kitui, and implementing partners to strengthen the capacity of stakeholders to advocate for improved nutrition for the country’s most vulnerable.
2. Conduct a formative research study in Loima and Turkana central sub-counties of Turkana county on community health worker counseling services for childhood nutrition and pneumonia-related behaviors.

USAID Momentum Country and Global Leadership

MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership (2019-2024) is part of a suite of innovative awards funded by USAID that Save the Children implements with several other organizations. The overall aim of this program is to holistically improve family planning and maternal, newborn, and child health in partner countries around the world. It focuses on technical and capacity development assistance (TCDA) to ministries of health and other country partners to improve outcomes.

MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership builds upon existing evidence and best practices and catalyzes innovations that enable government-led partnerships to deliver high-quality, evidence-based interventions that accelerate reductions in maternal, newborn, and child illness and death at scale. The project also contributes to global technical leadership, learning, and USAID’s policy dialogue to achieve global maternal, newborn, and child health, voluntary family planning, and reproductive health (MNCH/FP/RH) goals by supporting globally endorsed initiatives, strategies, frameworks, guidelines, and action plans.

Save the Children leads the nutrition programs of this project to integrate and improve the quality of nutrition care and services as part of the reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health continuum of care. 

Food Security and Livelihoods Programs

In coordination with our Department of Hunger and Livelihoods, we lead on nutrition components for multi-year, USAID-funded Food Assistance Programs in Niger, Kenya, Malawi, and Burkina Faso. This includes the promotion of infant and young child nutrition (IYCN) practices and care and maternal nutrition.