ENGINE partakes in global nutrition conference

Tuesday 6 October 2015

The Catholic Relief Services (CRS) organized the 2015 Integrated Nurtrition Conference at the Royal Orchid Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya on September 14 and 15, 2015. ENGINE (Empowering New Generations to Improve Nutrition and Economic opportunities) participated in the conference presenting its integrated and innovative Social Behavior Change Communication (SBCC) approach.

Over 200 participants attended the conference. The conference focused on Global and East African perspectives on integrated health programs for improved nutrition during the first 1,000 days, on a wide range of nutrition-sensitive topics, such as agriculture, health, WASH, early childhood development, household and community approaches.


The conference themes aimed to identify the strategies, pathways, effectiveness and cost of integrated nutrition-sensitive programs and ways of improving nutrition outcomes for mothers and young children. During the 2-day conference, global leaders in the area of nutrition, water and sanitation and early childhood development came together to share their perspectives, experiences and best practices, as a learning agenda for East Africa and facilitate a network among stakeholders.

ENGINE (Empowering New Generations to Improve Nutrition and Economic opportunities), a USAID funded multi-sector nutrition project and Feed the Future Initiative, which aims to improve the nutritional status of Ethiopian women and children through sustainable, coordinated, and evidence-based interventions, enabling them to lead healthier and more productive lives. The core initiative of this large-scale, five-year project (2011-2016) is to prevent under-nutrition and stunting during the first 1,000 days by strengthening the policy environment, quality of nutrition services, social and  behavior change, WASH, gender and nutrition sensitive livelihoods, and filling the nutrition research gap.


At the conference, selected abstracts showcased their experiences of working in integrated nutrition-sensitive programs. ENGINE presented its integrated Social Behavior Change Communication (SBCC) approach to improve maternal and child nutrition through innovative community dialogue, through a poster presentation. ENGINE’s innovative SBCC approach was developed by ENGINE’s SBCC team in partnership with the Manoff group. Amongst participants ranging from international NGOs and research institutes presenting their work on multi-sector programs, ENGINE’s senior SBCC manager, Zelalem Mekuria, representing Save the Children in Ethiopia, shared insights on some interactive approaches and methods used to engage communities and bring about social behavior change, in Ethiopia.

The poster outlined the background and purpose, project implementation sites and preliminary findings of the innovative community conversation approach, based on an abstract submitted for this purpose. To view the poster, please follow the link below:
http://www.eposters.net/pdfs/an-integrated-sbcc-approach-to-improve-maternal-and-child-nutrition-through-innovative-community.pdf