Welcome to the Interactive Programme of MNF 2023

Formative research is a systematic inquiry focused on better understanding the local context—people, their environment, and experiences—and can be used to inform the design, refinement, and evaluation of nutrition interventions. Formative research techniques, such as PhotoVoice, Trials of Improved Practices, Positive Deviance, Doer/Non-Doer Analysis, and other Human-Centered approaches, can be applied to explore the preferences, priorities, perspectives, and power dynamics at the individual, household, and community levels. Come to this session to learn more about how these techniques and methodologies have been applied to designing and refining micronutrient interventions in Burundi, Mozambique, Pakistan, Burkina Faso, and Pakistan for improved programme effectiveness and resiliency.

Implementation science includes a wide range of methods and approaches to identify and address implementation bottlenecks; means to identify, evaluate, and scale up implementation innovations; and strategies to enhance the utilization of existing knowledge, tools, and frameworks towards these ends. In this session, we focus on key issues that have emerged as challenges faced by researchers and implementers in linking evidence and action, and spotlight evidence of why and where otherwise efficacious interventions do or do not achieve the desired impact under real-world settings. Additionally, we highlight the role and application of implementation science with a specific focus on the context, fidelity, and outcomes of implementation, and appropriate combination of context-specific research methods in achieving and measuring impact and scale.

Data on whether or not target populations are being reached with nutrition interventions is essential for monitoring the reach and evaluating the impact of policies and programs. However, there are challenges to collecting and using high-quality data from household survey and administrative data sources. This session presents programmatic experiences and findings measurement research in Africa and South Asia about how to develop valid indicators and collect and analyze data to understand the reach and impact of multisector interventions to improve micronutrient intake.

This session will first set the stage describing the coverage of LSFF of grains, cooking oil and salt from the Global Fortification Data Exchange (GFDx) and then it will highlight effectiveness studies of large-scale food fortification in real world settings using multiple vehicles to meet micronutrient needs, including triangulating performance and quality of large-scale fortifiation programs with micronutrient status data, as well as market based assessments.

This session will share regional and country experiences in harmonizing the use of surveillance micronutrient data, and highlight the opportunities of regional networks and collaborations to strengthen programs.

This session will examine integrated multisectoral nutrition programs for adolescents, good practices for implementation of effective weekly iron and folic acid (WIFA) supplementation programs, and gender responsive nutrition education and opportunities for equity, reach and responsiveness of health systems to prevent anemia and improve nutrition.

Social Assistance Programs (SAPs) are implemented worldwide and have the potential to improve diet, nutrition and other outcomes including climate resilience. However, their full potential is yet to be reached. In this session, we will examine the existing evidence from the published literature on the impact of SAPs on women’s and children’s micronutrient related diet and nutrition outcomes, provide updated evidence of effectiveness on micronutrient related diet and nutrition outcomes from three different programs that have included health, resilience and/or agriculture components as part of the SAPs. Following the evidence-based presentations, a panel of key stakeholders will address questions such as: 1. What else can SAPs achieve (e.g. how can they address climate-related problems while also addressing micronutrient-related issues)? 2. How do SAPs need to evolve to increase impact on micronutrient-related diet and nutrition outcomes? 3. What innovations are needed to optimize implementation, impact, scaling and/or monitoring of SAPs?

This session will present updates on the global status of infant and young child feeding (IYCF) delivering home fortification programs, as well as describe new programming guidance, and highlight the evidence of home fortification on IYCF practices, and deliver two country case studies describing lessons learned and country experiences.

This session will bring together diverse experts on nutrient profiling systems (NPS) to discuss how to ensure NPS are fit for purpose. There are numerous available NPS that each have unique strengths and weaknesses. Identifying the appropriate contexts to use different types of NPS is essential to ensure effective policy and programmatic guidance and prevent unintended consequences. Experts will cover how to decide which nutrients to include in a NPS that is fit for purpose, including nutrients to encourage and limit; how to select appropriate food composition data; designing NPS for environmental impact assessments; and how to prevent inappropriate uses of NPS.

Increasing the density of minerals and vitamins in food staples offers a means to increase mineral and vitamin intakes at no extra cost to poor consumers. Transgenic plant development and agronomic approaches are discussed. Maintaining high productivity/yields and farmer profits is a key element to these approaches.

Although efficacy and effectiveness studies have demonstrated the potential of different types of micronutrient solutions to increase micronutrient intake and reduce micronutrient deficiencies, there is limited evidence as to how to scale and sustain effective solutions. Barriers to scaling and sustaining solutions may be rooted in issues such as lack of evidence (perceived or real), feasibility, financing and budgeting, politics, incentives such as profitability or others. In this panel we will discuss with a diverse set of stakeholders from the public and private sectors to understand their experiences with developing, implementing, scaling and sustaining micronutrient solutions and what they see as the ways to overcome existing barriers to scale and sustainability.

Accelerated climate change shocks impact the capacity of food systems worldwide to nourish populations, with a disproportionate impact on the nutrition resilience of the most vulnerable populations, specifically women and children. While this poses challenges for yields and nutrient density of crops, leading to higher food price and reduced micronutrient status, there are also opportunities for transformative adaptations of food systems for a positive impact on environment, health and micronutrition. Which transformations are ready to be scaled-up, what lessons can the global North learn from the global South, and what are the actions for which we shall hold governments, farmers, food industry, academics and consumers accountable?