The Power of Nutrition and NGOs
A powerful collaboration for better health and nutrition
Since 2019, The Power of Nutrition has partnered with local and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to move beyond traditional programming approaches and focus on integrated solutions combining nutrition with social protection, water sanitation and hygiene (WASH), early childhood development, immunisation, and maternal, child and adolescent health across various countries. This learning piece outlines the programme partnerships The Power of Nutrition has established with world-class NGOs over the past six years. It examines the success of these partnerships in delivering impact at the grassroots level through innovative, multi-sectoral approaches to combatting malnutrition. Key lessons learnt from these partnership models are also highlighted, serving as a guide for the wider nutrition sector.
Introduction
The Power of Nutrition actively champions Sustainable Development Goal 17 (SDG 17), which emphasises global partnerships as a cornerstone of sustainable development. When we were established in 2015, the World Bank and UNICEF were our founding implementing partners. The mandates of these global organisations primarily focus on scale (usually country-wide interventions) strengthening public health systems via delivery of large scale nutrition programmes. Keen to also engage and support communities through more locally targeted interventions, and leverage diverse expertise and partnership funding models, The Power of Nutrition expanded its implementing partner portfolio to include partnerships with civil society via Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs).
NGOs have strong, longstanding relationships with communities, which helps in culturally sensitive and context-appropriate interventions. This close connection often leads to more tailored and agile programmes that meet the specific needs of the target population. By partnering with renowned NGOs, The Power of Nutrition has been able to leverage their specialised expertise, local knowledge and networks, relationships with local governments, and on-the-ground presence. These collaborations have been instrumental in designing and implementing impactful, agile, responsive community-focused programmes that drive measurable change in nutrition outcomes at the grassroots level. This is done in parallel to strengthening systems and capacity of state and local level governments and building knowledge of essential nutrition practices.
Mathematica and Avenir Health Evaluation of The Power of Nutrition Compendium, May 2023"The Power of Nutrition’s partnerships with NGOs help diversify its investment portfolio and in-country partners and build evidence on how to deliver scalable interventions at the community level."
11 diverse partnerships across eight countries
Our first NGO partnership commenced in 2019 with the Better Investment for Stunting Alleviation (BISA) programme. Implemented by Save the Children and Nutrition International in Indonesia, the programme took a holistic approach to improve nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and health for mothers, children and adolescents. The same year, we went for an innovative approach to address malnutrition – by partnering with GroupM, a media and marketing agency, and utilising mobile technology and social behaviour change campaigns to improve nutrition and hygiene for families in two states of India (Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh) through the Hello Dr Didi programme.
The following year, in 2020, our collaboration with Care International and Action Against Hunger centred on strengthening health systems for sustaining improvements in nutrition in India’s Gujarat state. Building on our strong relationship with Save the Children, we launched a new programme in Malawi in 2021; delivered jointly with GiveDirectly, the MAZIKO programme combines maternal and child cash transfers with government-recommended nutrition, gender, agriculture, and early childhood development interventions. In 2022, our partnership with GiveDirectly, who specialise in tackling poverty through cash transfers, was expanded to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) - a key barrier to food and nutrition security is affordability, so cash transfers are helping to support livelihoods, resilience, and food security in the country.
Staying committed to our support in championing community-based interventions and decision making, we developed a unique monitoring and action-planning approach that identifies community-level demand-side barriers to accessing nutrition services and supports local government-led action planning to address them. This approach, called the Access Initiative, was piloted in 2022 in Liberia and Ethiopia and also marks our first programme where we worked directly with local partners – Liberia School of Public Health and Ethiopia Public Health Institute.
Moving on to 2023, this year was perhaps our most active in terms of new NGO partnerships and programme innovations in our portfolio. Implemented by World Vision, our programme in Zambia piloted the use of multiple micronutrient supplementation (MMS) in the country as a more regular treatment for pregnant women suffering from anaemia, to provide vital evidence to support the scale-up of the intervention. Our second new programme launch in 2023 also marked our first humanitarian partnership - using funds raised from our global malnutrition crisis appeal, we co-funded a nutrition project with International Medical Corps to support them in their efforts to address the humanitarian crisis in Ethiopia’s Oromia region. Our third partnership for the year was another unique one in our portfolio – the Keluarga SIGAP programme, implemented by GroupM in Indonesia, builds on the success of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and Unilever collaboration in India (Safaal Shuruaat) as well as drawing learnings from The Power of Nutrition’s BISA and Hello Dr Didi programmes. Keluarga SIGAP aims to raise awareness and drive behaviour change among parents towards nutrition, hygiene and immunisations to tackle preventable diseases.
Finally, in 2024, we launched the SNIP (Systems strengthening, nutrition and immunisation in Pakistan) programme with Aga Khan Development Network as the on-ground partner. The partnership aims to provide vital evidence on the importance of immunisation nutrition integration by demonstrating efficiencies in joint delivery to improve health, nutrition and vaccination outcomes.
These diverse partnerships demonstrate The Power of Nutrition’s sustained commitment to impactful, innovative programming beyond business-as-usual approaches and have been delivered through targeted interventions that address the unique needs of each context. Our selection of NGO partners has been done thorough rigorous due diligence, ensuring the highest standards and expertise for each intervention is delivered in targeted geographies. By carefully vetting each partner, we secure the best-suited organisation(s) in our focused geographies, to address specific challenges for nutrition specific and nutrition sensitive areas. This approach enables us to implement highly tailored, contextually relevant interventions that maximise impact. Each partnership is chosen to align with our commitment to deliver evidence-based, high-impact solutions where they are needed most.
Our NGO partnerships have allowed us to explore a broader range of approaches in multisectoral programming to address malnutrition than the traditional systems-strengthening approaches we had primarily implemented with the World Bank and UNICEF. This enables us to contribute across the continuum of innovation—spanning proof of concept, adaptation, and scaling up—to ensure sustainable, scalable, and context-sensitive solutions. In doing so, it also strengthens our ability to meet the diverse needs of vulnerable communities while supporting the global nutrition sector’s commitment to integrated and locally relevant interventions. For example, we piloted innovative strategies such as cash transfers in Malawi and the DRC with GiveDirectly, immunisation integration in Indonesia and Pakistan, digital SBCC (Social and Behaviour Change Communication) approaches in India and Indonesia with GroupM, and the shift from IFA (Iron Folic Acid) supplementation to MMS (Multiple Micronutrient Supplements) in Zambia with World Vision.
Additionally, working with NGO partners has opened doors to funders who might not have been interested in our World Bank or UNICEF programmes. Post-COVID, as global funding for nutrition became increasingly stretched, our focus on multisectoral programmes through NGO partnerships enabled resource pooling among funders from different sectors, a critical strategy to sustain and scale interventions. By collaborating with subject-matter-specific NGO partners, such as GiveDirectly for cash transfers, GroupM for digital marketing and SBCC, International Medical Corps for humanitarian responses, and EPHI and the University of Liberia for localised research partnerships under the Access Initiative, we were able to implement approaches that would have been more challenging under our traditional partnership approach.
It is also important to note that our collaboration with NGOs go beyond direct programme partnerships. In many of our large-scale programmes, such as the World Bank programme in Côte d'Ivoire (CDI) and UNICEF-led initiatives in Ethiopia, we have leveraged the expertise of local and international NGOs as sub-contracted partners. For example, 17 NGOs and community-based organizations (CBOs) were engaged in the CDI programme, while UNICEF partnered with Action Against Hunger (AAH) in Ethiopia. While these collaborations may be indirect, they highlight our commitment to mobilising civil society and engaging local organisations.
Overview of programmes
In ten years, The Power of Nutrition and its NGO partners have implmemented 10 multisectoral programmes across eight countries in Africa and Asia.
The Power of Nutrition convened a range of partners in 2018 to support the Government of Indonesia to realise its stunting reduction goals. The private and public sector partners - Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Asia Philanthropy Circle, Save the Children and Nutrition International, pooled resources through The Power of Nutrition to integrate efforts and maximise impact.
The Better Investment in Stunting Alleviation (BISA – which means “I can” in Indonesian) programme supported women, children and adolescent girls in two districts - West Java and East Nusu Tenggara Timur - to have better access to nutrition services. Interventions include improving understanding around nutrition and water, sanitation and hygiene through social and behaviour change interventions, encouraging breastfeeding and strengthening health services by providing training for health workers. The programme also tackled the high rates of anaemia among teenagers through iron and folic acid supplementation in schools.
This programme concluded in June 2024.
This unique programme brings together a range of partners, each specialists in different sectors to create a truly holistic approach. Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, leads on the immunisation component (and overall programme management), Unilever brings experience on sanitation and hygiene, The Power of Nutrition brings its technical expertise on nutrition and finally, GroupM as an implementing partner, uses its experience in marketing to ensure the behavioural change elements create lasting impact.
The overall aim of the programme is to reach over one million ‘zero-dose’ children under five, vulnerable to malnutrition, in multiple provinces, including West Java and South Kalimantan. This is being achieved through a variety of different and complementary interventions, such as raising parents’ awareness of the importance of immunisation, health, nutrition and handwashing, alongside strengthening the health system to identify, treat and support families with a malnourished child.
The Power of Nutrition convened partners (Unilever, NORAD, GroupM along with the local state government) to create an innovative programme, named Hello Dr Didi, that used mobile phones to improve hygiene and nutrition. Leveraging Unilever and GroupM's experience in marketing as well as The Power of Nutrition’s technical nutrition expertise, the partnership utilised the group’s knowledge to create this unique programme. Through on-the-ground interventions and a unique voice-based service, pregnant women and mothers received critical information around nutrition and hygiene where access to correct health information is limited. Working hand-in-hand with the local government, the programme supports India’s overarching scheme for holistic nutrition (POSHAN Abhiyaan, or National Nutrition Mission).
The success of the programme in Gujarat prompted Cargill to join the partnership and support an expansion to the state of Uttar Pradesh. The programme has since been reinforced with messaging on adequate protein intake (through the partnership with Cargill) for mothers and children as it continues to be a concern in Uttar Pradesh.
The Power of Nutrition partnered with CARE International and Action Against Hunger with funding from UBS Optimus Foundation to support the Government of the State of Gujarat as it implemented the Indian Government’s National Nutrition Mission. The National Nutrition Mission was launched in 2018 and aims to improve the nutritional status of children, adolescents, pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers throughout the country, thereby reducing stunting and wasting.
The programme works with the Government of India and the Government of the State of Gujarat over a five-year period to develop and strengthen its nutrition systems and services, sustaining improvements in nutrition by increasing capacity and building knowledge, skills and motivation of health workers in the State.
The Power of Nutrition convened a range of partners – Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, UK Aid and implementers GiveDirectly, Save the Children and International Food Policy Research Institute to support the Government of Malawi with an innovative and holistic programme that proactively aims to reduce stunting whilst improving early childhood development. It supports the government’s existing approach to integrate nutrition with early childhood development, to ensure longer-term, sustainable progress.
The programme, named MAZIKO (meaning “Foundation” in Chichewa) has unconditional cash transfers at its core. This is an empowering way to tackle affordability as a key barrier to malnutrition and inequality. With the cost of a nutritious diet having risen by 25% in Malawi in the last year, this barrier is becoming more acute than ever. When combined with complementary interventions around early childhood development, nutrition, gender and supporting climate resilience, it creates a holistic effort to tackle the key drivers of malnutrition to support women and children to thrive.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) continues to face complex humanitarian and development crises. The Power of Nutrition is working with the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) to address these challenges in DRC in a two-phased programme.
The first phase is implemented with GiveDirectly who specialise in tackling poverty through cash transfers. Cash transfers provide households, particularly women, with the power to determine their own priorities by deciding where best to spend the additional income to address their needs. A key barrier to food and nutrition security is affordability, so as a result cash transfers are helping to support livelihoods, resilience, food security and ultimately improve nutrition outcomes.
The second phase is being implemented by UNICEF and aims to improve feeding, nutrition, and care practices in the community as well as the provision of nutrition services within health facilities. it looks to scale up proven high-impact interventions reaching children under the age of two, adolescent girls and pregnant and breastfeeding women.
The Access Initiative is The Power of Nutrition’s new innovative monitoring, evaluation and strategy tool that uncovers and acts on the barriers communities face in accessing key nutrition services. This has been piloted in Liberia and Ethiopia with funding from Irish Aid. Working at the community-level, nutrition programmes are then shaped to have the greatest reach and impact. The simple yet effective process starts with small and quick surveys to assess the coverage of nutrition services and uncover the barriers households face in accessing them. The data is then used to create community centred action plans, allowing more people to access and benefit from the nutrition programmes. The surveys are then repeated to continually test and improve the programme. This innovative, relatively low-cost approach allows programmes to better target their resources to maximise impact in tackling malnutrition and provides learning to improve future programmes.
The goal of the programme is to pilot the use of multiple micronutrient supplementation in Zambia as a more regular treatment for pregnant women, to provide vital evidence to support the scale-up of the intervention. The Power of Nutrition co-designed the research component to the programme along with World Vision, the Ministry of Health in Zambia and Vitamin Angels who also act as our implementing partner. Our collective aim has been to identify opportunities and challenges related to delivering multiple micronutrient supplementation within the public health system and implement a distribution system. This work has been supported by Kirk Humanitarian (who has contributed the product itself to the programme, as an in-kind donations) and UK Aid.
The Power of Nutrition joined forces with International Medical Corps as its first and dedicated humanitarian aid partner in response to the growing humanitarian crisis in Ethiopia. Our first work together supported communities in need of support in East Hararghe, by working with local community health workers to improve diets in households by providing goats and poultry, along with supporting infant and young-child feeding activities. The aim was to sustainably prevent malnutrition, prioritising households with pregnant women and with young children. It will be complemented by International Medical Corps’ wider work supporting local health facilities to provide malnutrition treatment.
Our first immunisation nutrition integration (INI) programme launched in 2024 in Pakistan. The $7.2 million co-designed and co-funded programme aims to reach approximately 55,000 children under two with routine immunisations. It will also provide approximately 1 million women with better nutrition and health care, empowering them with knowledge to confidently deliver the best care for themselves and their children, helping to tackle the intergenerational trap of malnutrition.
The programme is in partnership with federal and provincial governments, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and the Aga Khan Development Network.
Story from DRC - the transformational impact cash transfers have had on Sarah and her family
Prior to being enrolled in the cash transfers programme, Sarah and her husband did not own any property or land to farm on, but that she purchased and re-sold fruits and vegetables such as lemons, oranges and bananas at the Kituku market near Goma. On some days, she was able to make revenues of CFA 5,000-10,000 (US $ 2.50-5.00). Her husband does not have a steady job, but he earns money doing odd jobs in the village, such as chopping trees.
Her main concerns were being able to feed her children and having land to build a house on. With the first transfer she received from GiveDirectly, she put part of it into growing her business and the rest towards purchasing a piece of land to cultivate. When Sarah received her first payment, she thought it was a miracle and went immediately to the market to buy food for herself and her family. The next day, she started putting funds into her commercial activities. She is now able to pay others to help her transport her merchandise (fruits such as oranges and bananas) for her rather than having to carry it on her back or on top of her head herself.
Sarah says that she, her husband and their three children now eat three times a day, starting with ‘foufou’ made from corn flour. For lunch, they like to have rice and beans and for dinner ‘foufou’ again but made from cassava flour. She believes that it’s a good idea to receive cash over other types of aid, because people have so many different and often complex needs to respond to.
Natalie Roschnik, Senior Nutrition Advisor, Save The Children
the Power of Nutrition has invested heavily in terms of the capacity building [for the community care group model].
Reflections from the ground – how the BISA programme in Indonesia is improving stunting rates through Emotional Demonstrations
(Emotional Demonstration, or ‘’EmoDemo’’, is a group activity that uses emotions to encourage behaviour change).
Anis can't help smiling when thinking about the first time she attended an Emo-Demo session back in 2021. "The training was very impressive," she recalled. Before the Emo-Demo, Anis, who had only been a cadre for a few years, did not know much about breast milk. At the time, Anis had just given birth to a baby and was worried by her lack of breast milk production, so decided to give her baby formula milk.
After attending an Emo-Demo session in her village in Sumedang District, West Java, Anis learned that the size of a newborn baby's stomach is not sufficient to hold a lot of milk. "But after the EmoDemo, I found out that a newborn baby's stomach is still small, so breast milk is enough," she said. Anis' experience reflects that a mother's lack of knowledge about breast milk can be risky for the baby. The EmoDemo method, which uses a lot of games and practical demonstrations, makes the important information easier for mothers to understand.
“Emo-Demo is quite effective because there is a demonstration so the mothers understand better. You don't have to explain at length, just show the results of the practice, and they would say ‘Ah, all right’," said Deti, a Posyandu cadre who specialises in handling cases of stunting.
“I know more so now mothers also know more on how to feed their children, wash their hands with soap, and choose healthy children's snacks," said Lilis, another cadre. The challenge, however, is how to apply this new knowledge to her own family, in particular on handwashing with soap.
Meanwhile for Yuliani, a village midwife, the change that she feels is most significant is the ease of providing counselling for the participant mothers. "For me personally, it is easier to provide assistance to mothers of toddlers who experience nutritional disorders, then also provide knowledge to me personally during classes for pregnant women, mothers of toddlers, with various knowledge," said the midwife who is also pregnant.
Apart from knowledge related to Emo-Demo material, another change is related to the approach to mothers of children under five to change their behaviour, especially regarding feeding the infants and under five children and maintaining hygiene. Cadres felt that Emo-Demo made participants more responsive and willing to ask questions, as experienced by Isar, a cadre from another village. Anis also feels that it’s becomes easier for mothers to convey problems and changes they are experiencing.
“We are the ones who demonstrate, we are the ones who wash our hands. So the mothers whose previous (behaviour) was not good, after Emo-Demo, we like to chat and thank God, they say they now apply handwashing with soap. Yes, little by little, there is a change in their behaviour, I can see that," said Anis.
Smaller Investments, Lasting change
As compared to our World Bank and UNICEF partnerships, the investment or total programme sizes of our NGO partnerships is much smaller. This though, has allowed us to leverage financing from new private sector donors who often do not want to be a “drop in the bucket” of a large programme/policy framework and who seek attribution of impact and influence directly to their investment, whilst still being aligned with government priorities and plans (Mathematica and Avenir Health, Evaluation of The Power of Nutrition Compendium, May 2023).
The design of our first NGO programme in Indonesia, with Save the Children and Nutrition International, was very much driven by The Power of Nutrition’s assessment of the needs in Indonesia and how a relatively small amount of funding (initially a total of US$10 million) could best be deployed to have impact in such a large country. Through multiple conversations with implementing partners and donors, and participation in design workshops, we significantly influenced the design of a programme that would be complementary to the separate large-scale World Bank programme that was under preparation at the time. Throughout implementation to date, The Power of Nutrition has been involved as a technical partner – as with all our other programmes - particularly in reviewing the monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning (MEAL) planning. In partnership with our investors we have encouraged our implementing partners to strengthen this element of the programme and allocate an appropriate budget.
Similarly, in our Dr Didi and SIGAP programmes, The Power of Nutrition has played a critical role as a technical partner and expert in nutrition. Given the nature of the partners involved – Unilever, whose expertise lies in hygiene, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance for immunisation expertise (SIGAP only) and GroupM being a third-party implementer who are a digitally charged marketing services conglomerate – the expectation has always been for The Power of Nutrition to lead on the technical aspects of integrating nutrition into the platform.
The above examples demonstrate the value add from The Power of Nutrition as undoubtedly being more than financial, as we are the lead technical partner on nutrition and facilitate accountability to a pool of convened donors.
From Mathematica and Avenir Health, Evaluation of The Power of Nutrition Compendium, May 2023:
Implementing partners uniformly value the rigor and quality that The Power of Nutrition brings to its investments and appreciate the team’s efforts in working with them as a true partner to develop strong proposals. Country offices and technical staff at implementing partners appreciate the efforts of the Investment team, and partners feel they push country teams to develop and implement high-quality programs. Implementing partners also really appreciated the M&E focus of The Power of Nutrition and felt their emphasis on a strong, detailed results framework was a value add and set them apart from other donors. Once an investment is in place, The Power of Nutrition is also committed to working with partners to identify solutions to address bottlenecks and make course corrections.
Humaira’s experience with the Dr Didi programme
Humaira is a mother of two children; a twenty-month-old daughter Jiya and a four-year-old daughter Zikra.
Humaira makes sure her children eat on time and that they eat the right food. She tries to bring fruits and veggies from the village shop every day. However, it is not always possible because of the financial constraints.
She said, “Since Hello Doctor Didi has come to my village; I have learnt not to give any food to my children. Earlier, if my children were not eating the meals I cooked at home I would give them junk and packed food like chips and biscuits. Now I don’t submit to children’s demand for junk and packed food. Gradually, my children have also reduced asking for outside food”.
Humaira said, “My husband and I want to give a decent upbringing for our children. We want to give them a good education. Earlier we used to think that we had to give healthy food and maintain hygiene in our house for our children’s better health. But, we didn’t know well enough what is healthy (complete) food. We used to give up under the circumstances. After Dr Didi, I and my mother-in-law have learnt to provide at least five types of food out of seven types* of food to our children and the mother herself.”
Now, every day before the meal Humaira’s children and her relatives’ children wash their hands with soap before their meal.
Mother-in-law Shehnaz Begum concurred with Humaira and said, “Earlier we used to have too much salt, oil and spicy food in our daily diet. We used to have high blood pressure and were often sick. After Dr Didi, we are having better food and we aren’t falling sick as often as we used to earlier.”
“My daughter along with her 5-year-old daughter Mahak has come to our house. We have passed our knowledge of healthy food and hygiene to her also. Mahak started to prefer fruits than having junk food.”
*Seven types of food - Grains and Cereals, Fruits, Vegetables, oil/butter/clarified butter/, pulses/legumes/meat, dairy food and nuts and dry fruits.
Unlocking learnings from our NGO collaborations
1. Co-financing: The Power of Nutrition was set up to use private capital to unlock public investment in nutrition. Our financing model multiplies contributions from funding partners. The model works by first doubling funders’ contributions, and then directing the pooled financing to our country programmes; here, it is doubled again by our implementing partners in the form of new grants (UNICEF and NGO partnerships) and International Development Association (World Bank) financing for nutrition programming. This level of co-financing is guaranteed by pre-negotiated co-financing arrangements we have with our current partners. However, the NGO partners that The Power of Nutrition has worked with felt there was a need for more clarity and transparency around co-financing criteria and sources. They felt The Power of Nutrition should be clearer early in the discussions about the donors investing in the program to avoid duplication in donor outreach and competition between The Power of Nutrition and its NGO partners, which have sometimes tried to raise funds from the same pool of donors. The long process of investment development can also make it challenging for implementing partners to identify donors to co-finance investments because of uncertainty about when investments will get approved and the timing of some donors’ disbursement cycles (Mathematica and Avenir Health, Evaluation of The Power of Nutrition Compendium, May 2023).
We have adapted in response to this learning by proactively and transparently communicating with our implementing partners about the primary funders we plan to target or have already engaged before advancing to full proposal design. This approach helps to prevent duplicative donor outreach and minimises competition between The Power of Nutrition and our NGO partners. Additionally, we have adopted greater flexibility in the size of total programme investments, such as in Zambia and Pakistan, where co-financing contributions have been under the $10 million threshold due to NGO partners' co-financing constraints. In some cases, we have entered into partnerships without requiring implementing partners to provide match funding, enabling us to explore novel approaches—such as through the Access Initiative and GroupM collaboration in the Hello Doc Didi programme.
2. Localised M&E and action planning: Overseeing Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) and action planning more directly in collaboration with local entities such as our partnership with ULSOPH and EPHI for the Access Initiative, allows for an agile, data-driven approach to tracking outcomes and adapting intervention approaches in response to localised challenges. By integrating these local partnerships, The Power of Nutrition ensures accountability and transparency, both to the communities served, to local authorities/decision-makers and to its donors. This real-time, localised monitoring supports tailored adjustments to local-government-owned action plans that increase targeting and relevance of interventions, supporting local ownership, driving sustainable impact and maximising the value of each dollar invested. Moreover, this hands-on M&E and action planning approach amplifies evidence-based learning, generating insights into what works best in specific local contexts. The result is a model that not only achieves quicker impact but also builds the groundwork for long-term efficacy by empowering local organisations and local government. This ultimately ensures that investments resonate with local needs, are context specific, enhancing programme credibility, sustainability, and alignment with community priorities.
3. Funding pipeline: Funding has been a challenge for The Power of Nutrition following changes to our platform funding arrangements, but by engaging additional donors with a demonstrated interest in localisation through the Access Initiative, we could have reinforced our agenda of empowering local partners. This localisation approach is becoming increasingly central to sustainable development programming, as it prioritises community-led solutions and local ownership, and ensures that investments are directly aligned with the priorities of those they aim to serve. Moreover, by actively advocating for and showcasing the successes of the Access Initiative, The Power of Nutrition could catalyse greater interest in funding models that prioritise localised M&E and action planning, which has been instrumental in driving programme relevance and accountability. This approach could have bolstered not only our current programmes but also positioned The Power of Nutrition as a leader in sustainable, community-driven development – an approach that resonates with emerging donor priorities across the sector. In essence, more intentional promotion of the Access Initiative’s achievements could have strengthened our localisation strategy, enhancing our capacity to secure resources for future initiatives. This would pave the way for a robust, context-specific programming model that is better equipped to adapt to the evolving needs of communities and donors alike, ensuring greater sustainability and impact over the long term.
Natalie Roschnik, Senior Nutrition Advisor, Save The Children
I've found the flexibility of the Power of Nutrition very good and positive. [...] I find that to be an environment that allows you to work, that trusting kind of relationship, to be able to bring ideas forward and to be able to share results as they are, but also to get even their own feedback.
The Way forward: Harnessing the Power of Partnerships for Transformational Impact
As the global nutrition sector continues to navigate complex challenges, The Power of Nutrition’s experiences underscore the immense potential of partnerships in driving lasting change. These partnerships encouraged us to think beyond conventional solutions and consider more innovative approaches, even when they did not result in direct investments. For example, our engagement with Save the Children on Outcomes-based financing in Kenya allowed us to explore an innovative financing mechanism that, while ultimately not materialising into a TPoN investment, provided valuable insights and catalysed important discussions within the sector.
This learning piece reflects our commitment to integrated, multi-sectoral collaboration as a cornerstone of impactful programming that requires:
1. Strengthening Multi-Sector Collaboration: The successes highlighted in this learning piece reaffirm the value of partnerships that transcend traditional sectoral and programme boundaries. Combining expertise across nutrition, WASH, early childhood development, immunisation, social protection, and maternal and adolescent health has proven to be a powerful strategy for contributing towards sustainable impact. There is proven evidence too from our innovative approaches that we hope the broader nutrition sector can adapt and scale according to what works best in varying contexts.
2. Elevating Local Ownership and Sustainability: Our partnerships with NGOs and local entities like ULSOPH and EPHI through the Access Initiative exemplify the power of localised monitoring, decision-making, and action planning. By embedding accountability and transparency at the grassroots level, communities and local governments are empowered to sustain long-term progress. Future collaborations must prioritise strengthening the capacity of local governments and organisations to ensure investments are aligned with community priorities leading to programme continuity and sustained impact.
3. Inspiring Action at N4G 2025 and beyond: The upcoming Nutrition for Growth (N4G) Summit in Paris presents a pivotal opportunity for the nutrition sector to align on strategies and commitments for the future. At this critical juncture, it is more important than ever to advocate for innovation and investments in evidence-based, community-driven approaches that align with the priorities of SDG 17.
This learning piece is more than a reflection on past successes—it is a tool for knowledge-sharing. We hope it inspires others in the sector to explore and adopt innovative partnership modalities, ensuring that every investment in nutrition delivers maximum impact. By continuing to engage with the global community, we will contribute to a shared vision of a world free from malnutrition.
The path forward is clear: partnerships remain our most powerful lever for change. By building on our experiences, embracing multi-sector collaboration, and fostering local ownership, delivering innovative, sustainable solutions to end malnutrition is imperative. The journey to N4G in 2025 and beyond is an opportunity to accelerate progress and deepen our collective commitment to a healthier, more equitable world.
