The Power of Nutrition and UNICEF
An innovative partnership delivering at scale for women, adolescents and children
UNICEF is one of The Power of Nutrition’s founding implementing partners and we have been working together to tackle malnutrition around the globe since 2015. Over the past decade this partnership has invested $90 million to support 7 programmes across 6 countries. Working with national and regional governments, as well as local partners, and with a strong focus on systemic change and health-system strengthening, these 7 programmes have delivered change for over 111 million women, children and adolescents.
111 million
In total, more than 111 million women*, children and adolescents have been supported through the partnership.
10,246
More than 10,000 children's lives* have been saved through health and nutrition interventions.
204,347
Over 200,000 cases of anaemia* have been prevented among pregnant women through nutrition supplementation.
Introduction
Being a leading advocate for improving child nutrition, a major partner in the Scaling Up Nutrition movement, and committed to working in partnership to improve nutrition outcomes for children, UNICEF was an obvious choice of partner from the outset.
Our goal was to jointly invest in countries with the highest levels of stunting and where there was existing government commitment to improving nutrition outcomes, with a focus on promotion, scaling up and sustaining coverage of proven high impact nutrition specific interventions such as growth monitoring, infant and young child feeding and micronutrient supplementation. Our programming has also supported multisectoral approaches to improve governance, planning, coordination, and delivery of nutrition sensitive interventions.
The 10-year anniversary of our partnership provides a unique opportunity to look back at what has been achieved together, celebrate the achievements and what has worked well, and reflect on what we have learned.
Benefits of a joint approach
Working in partnership, The Power of Nutrition and UNICEF have been able to combine resources to build stronger programmes, which in turn have greater impact for children, parents, and caregivers.
1. Government buy-in and domestic resource allocation:
Leveraging UNICEF’ s established relationships at government level the partnership has been able to closely align with national nutrition strategies, strengthen policy, build political will, and support the creation of multisectoral governance and accountability structures at national and sub-national level to improve delivery of nutrition services to women and children. This strong relationship and proven technical ability provide governments with the confidence to invest domestic resources and commit to ongoing sustainability.
2. Expertise and knowledge: Using globally proven nutrition interventions, creating context specific resources, and sharing best practice and knowledge of the latest innovations, the partnership has been able to create strong multisectoral programmes that build capacity, create evidence and proof of concept, that can then be scaled up nationally and adapted to specific local community needs.
3. Nutrition programming at scale: Using The Power of Nutrition’s platform funding to leverage additional match funding, the partnership has been able to deliver systemic change through health system strengthening. The funding provided has strengthened delivery of critical nutrition interventions within health facilities, trained frontline workers, and develop resources for future training and knowledge management. At the same time, local partners with close links to communities, were engaged to create demand for nutrition services, embed positive behaviours at community and household level, and achieve greater impact through understanding the needs of the community, and building capacity of the partner organisations.
4. Focus on Early Childhood Development: Recognising the multifaceted drivers of malnutrition, the partnership has moved to delivering strong multisectoral programming with a particular focus on delivering nutrition interventions through the lens of early child development. Placing the needs of mothers and children at the centre of programme design and supporting integrated delivery of health, nutrition, education, and social protection services has helped break down traditional siloed ways of working and build programmes that invest in human capital and delivery of national development plans.
Philip Goodwin, CEO, UNICEF UK
Over the past decade, The Power of Nutrition and UNICEF have been united in our aim to end all forms of hunger for children everywhere. Conflict, climate change and rising food prices have threatened unprecedented levels of malnutrition, impacting the lives of tens of millions of children across the world. That’s why it’s been more important than ever to work together, so that every child has the nutrition they need to live a happy, healthy life and fulfil their potential.
Overview of programmes
Since signing the joint collaboration agreement in 2015, The Power of Nutrition and UNICEF have created seven transformational programmes across six countries, supporting over 111 million women and children:
The first UNICEF programme approved by The Power of Nutrition aimed to reduce child undernutrition across Liberia and support the country to get back on track with its nutrition commitments following the 2012-14 Ebola outbreak. With the support of multiple stakeholders, and with UNICEF implementing, phase I laid the foundations to restoring delivery of high-impact nutrition interventions at scale, through strengthening the health system and creating an enabling environment. Following a review of phase I achievements and lessons learnt, and building on the momentum gained, phase II supported the Government of Liberia to implement its new National Nutrition Programme, consolidate the gains of phase I, and contribute towards meeting the government’s target of reducing stunting. This was achieved with the allocation of domestic resources and establishment of a dedicated nutrition budget.
Working through the Ministry of Health this transformative programme aimed to contribute to the achievement of the government’s vision “to make Benin, a country where each person enjoys a satisfactory nutritional status to participate fully in the development of an emerging Benin.”
This programme aimed to improve the nutritional wellbeing of children under the age of two by…
- Strengthening planning and coordination of nutrition programming, including the creation of the country National Food and Nutrition Agency and Food and Nutrition Policy
- Increasing access to quality nutrition services for infant and young child feeding practices and prenatal care
- Enhancing understanding amongst parents, caregivers, and health workers on the benefits of optimal infant and young child feeding practices and prenatal care
As a result, by 2024, rates of exclusive breastfeeding in target regions had increased to at least 10% above the national average, and the proportion of mothers who took iron and folic acid supplementation during their pregnancy had risen from 50% to 90%.
The partnership between the Government of Maharashtra, UNICEF, and The Power of Nutrition provides technical and strategic support to the government and local partners for strengthening critical programme interventions aligned with the Prime Minister’s Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nourishment and the National Health Mission. It aims to accelerate the nutrition agenda for young children, adolescents, and women from the most deprived communities in the region by strengthening the implementation capacity and delivery of essential nutrition services at facility level.
In India, the development of community health has resulted in the creation of two separate lines of support delivered by the public health department (ASHA workers) and the department for women and children (Anganwadi workers. By facilitating a more coordinated approach for frontline workers, centred around early child development and nutrition, the programme has also demonstrated the impact of community-based management of acute malnutrition and created a case for further allocation of domestic resources by the state government. The success of the approach has led to roll out in other states and a similar programme is now being developed in neighbouring Sri Lanka.
The Power of Nutrition’s Bangladesh programme has supported the collaboration of UNICEF with the Government of Bangladesh and has focussed on maternal and child health, scaling up critical nutrition interventions in districts with the greatest need, and ensuring better coordination across government ministries, and building back capacity following the COVID-19 pandemic.
By strengthening policies, strategies, and guidelines for services, and improving the capacity of the public health system at district and community-level the programme is increasing coverage and creating a more resilient enabling environment for the nutritional care of pregnant women and care of low birthweight infants.
Within this large-scale nutrition programme, with the support of PVH, there has also been support for an innovative community model designed to strengthen the package of interventions targeting mothers and pregnant women working in the ready-made garment industry. Through the ‘mothers@work’ programme women can access antenatal care at onsite health facilities. The programme has delivered a minimum standard of maternity protection and breastfeeding support in factories nationwide. The Power of Nutrition’s involvement has helped strengthen the initiative and ensure its further roll out.
Despite making substantial progress in the reduction of stunting in recent years, Ethiopia remains a country with one of the highest burdens of malnourished children in the world, made worse by a climate crisis and continuing conflict in the region. This ambitious multi partner collaboration, however, aims to support the Government’s ongoing commitment and effort to end malnutrition in all its forms and achieve the World Health Assembly targets.
By increasing the coverage and quality of maternal and child nutrition services including prevention and treatment of wasting, deworming, micronutrient supplementation, and infant and young child nutrition the programme will help narrow the gaps in providing quality nutrition-specific interventions at the health facility level, thereby preventing maternal and child malnutrition and improving treatment for severe acute malnutrition.
At the core of this initiative is community leadership. Solutions have been tailored to meet unique needs of local populations, ensuring sustainability and long-term impact. The programme has trained thousands of maternal and child health workers, launched grassroots health campaigns, and increased community awareness about healthy diets. These efforts not only address immediate crises but also lay the foundation for future resilience.
Through this partnership, UNICEF is implementing a range of interventions, including multiple micronutrient supplementation, WASH provision, and early childhood development in three provinces with high rates of stunting – Kwilu, Kasai, and South Kivu. These interventions are complementing the Government-led, World Bank-funded, Multisectoral Health and Nutrition Project.
The project is facilitating the implementation of novel approaches from UNICEF’s global 2020-2030 nutrition strategy, supporting the government of DRC to introduce innovative systems approaches and operate in a cross-sectoral manner, to deliver key interventions to reduce all forms of malnutrition. The project will also contribute to the overall policy, governance and multisectoral coordination at national and provincial levels to ensure monitoring and accountability, efficiency, targeted action, and greater impact.
FCDO Programme Completion Report, 2023
UNICEF has been a strong technical partner able to work at scale and building the capacity of partner governments at national and local levels. The partnership has been an asset in attracting certain private sector donors who value the association with UNICEF
15-year-old Facia Liberia"We learned about different types of food to eat, and for the past three years, we've been taking worm medicine and iron tablets provided by the hospital....I'm no longer tired or lazy. I feel strong and healthy."
Mathematica and Avenir Health, Evaluation of The Power of Nutrition Compendium, May 2023
In Liberia, during the period of The Power of Nutrition and UNICEF co-investment, expenditures on nutrition increased significantly; in 2016, before the program began, only 50 percent of the budget allocations for nutrition-specific programs was utilized, but during the investment period, an average of 92 percent of the budget was spent each year.
Esther with her grandfather Liberia"She was so sick that people in the community thought she would not make it. Fortunately, she started gaining strength and gradually gained weight and became a happy baby again."
Learnings from the partnership
1. Impact and a Beneficiary Centred Approach: One of the benefits of working in partnership with UNICEF has been the opportunity to leverage funding and deliver programmes at scale with Government buy in and multiple partners. These health-system strengthening programmes are delivering change and impact at scale but can be overly complex in their structure. With so many stakeholders involved, with differing needs, individual priorities, and their own measures of success, it has proven difficult, at times, to ensure everyone gets what they need and in the level of detail they would like. Whilst there are clear monitoring and reporting mechanisms in place, and all efforts have been made to find compromises and put mitigating measures in place, this has created issues with identifying financing partners, with programme design, and has put unnecessary strain on programmes.
Before accepting funding, The Power of Nutrition and UNICEF have discussed donor expectations in detail and tried to mirror contract obligations in upward and downward agreements. By putting in place strong programme management processes and ensuring strong transparent communication The Power of Nutrition and UNICEF have worked hard to ensure high quality reporting has been shared with all stakeholders on a regular basis and in a common format.
Delivering programmes focussed on impact and ensuring a beneficiary centred approach is key to ensuring all stakeholders are prioritising the right thing.
2. Institutional Processes & Timescale: The Power of Nutrition was set up to convene innovative partnerships to deliver more money for nutrition and more nutrition for the money. By bringing stakeholders, and resources, together with a shared vision we would deliver greater impact than we could do alone. Convening stakeholders at global level each with their own established processes and timescales, and working to deliver large-scale, systemic change, can often result in complex negotiations which can take time to broker. Whilst the opportunity created by these partnerships is significant, the time and effort taken can be prohibitive, costly, and be off putting to stakeholders who are used to more dynamic processes or programmes that are smaller in scope.
The Power of Nutrition and UNICEF have continually reviewed the partnership and ways of working to address any bottlenecks and identify work arounds to increase efficiency and ensure programmes are being delivered with minimal top-down interference, leaving delivery teams on the ground to do what they do best. The Power of Nutrition is using this 10-year anniversary to gather all this learning and share with our key partners and sector wide stakeholders.
3. Removing Layers: Another issue that has been off putting to donors is the number of layers through which the funding is passing, which arguably reduces its effectiveness as it passes through each level. With bank fees, and possible foreign exchange losses with each transaction, and each partner taking a percentage for overheads and running costs, funding targeted for creating change has been lost to admin and bureaucracy. It has also created issues with the flow of information as it passes through of donors, intermediaries, national structures local organisations.
In the context of current sector-wide discussions around budget reductions and localisation, ensuring scarcer resources are reaching the communities, women, and children who need them, with minimal steps in between, and delivering maximum impact at scale remains a challenge.
Jim Emerson, CEO, The Power of Nutrition
The Power of Nutrition was set up with an important mandate – to convene partnerships to mobilise funds to fight malnutrition across Africa and Aisa. Through our decade-long partnership with UNICEF we have been able to do just that, building collaborative partnerships, with integrated multisectoral policy, financing, and scalable programmatic solutions that strengthen national systems and local agency. Now, more than ever there is a need for strong partnerships like these to tackle malnutrition and we look forward to supporting the Child Nutrition Fund, in the coming years, to build on the progress that we have made to date.
The way forward for greater impact
The Power of Nutrition is delighted to see UNICEF’s leadership and commitment to coordinating investment in nutrition continuing through the Child Nutrition Fund (CNF). It is imperative that lessons learned from The Power of Nutrition – also an innovative nutrition platform established to coordinate co-investment in proven nutrition interventions at scale – are learned so that successes can be replicated and challenges mitigated for maximum impact for women, adolescents and children worldwide.
*Impact Numbers from the report "Ten Years of Progress: An impact evaluation of The Power of Nutrition" by Modern Scientist Global, March 2025. They originate from our Lives Saved Tool (LiST) modelling and are not UNICEF provided figures.
Photo Captions & Credits (in order)
1. 3.5 years old Viraj and 1.5 years old Manasvi eat nutritious food at their house in Karmad, Aurangabad. Credit: UNICEF/ UNI333443/Bhardwaj.
2. Anipa, aged 3, holds a pouch of Plumpy’Nut in Bukavu, South Kivu. Credit: UNICEF/UNI482851/Mirindi Johnson.
3. Khadija brings her son to the nearest vaccination center, Maghurali, Nalta, Satkhira. UNICEF/UNI532465/Islam Bitu.
4. 9-month-old Eslamidin Shafi is well-nourished, as indicated by his MUAC measurement. Credit: UNICEF/UNI570637/Demissew Bizuwerk.
5. UNICEF's team meets Women Support Groups during Nutrition field accessment in Pouh town, Grand Gedeh County, Liberia . Credit: UNICEF/Liberia/004/2024.
6. A pregnant woman being counselled by a member of the Infant young child feeding (IYCF) support group, in Kalalè, Borgou, Benin. Credit: UNICEF/Benin/2023/David-Gnahoui
7. UNICEF India.
8. A MUAC test is being done to measure the health of the child. Maghurali, Nalta, Satkhira. Credit: UNICEF/UNI532493/Islam Bitu.
9. Cooking demonstration at the village health and nutrition platforms in the Oromia region. Credit: UNICEF/UNI570707/Demissew Bizuwerk.
10. Gloire 12 months eating Plumpy'nut at Maria Health Centre in Bukavu. Credit: UNICEF/UNI482856/Mirindi Johnson
11. UNICEF/Liberia/2023
12. UNICEF/Liberia/2023/Sonnie S Morris
13. Family Welfare Assistant Jannatul Ferdous Putul visits a three-day-old baby and mother, inquires about the mother's health, and explains how to take care of the body after delivery. Ratanpur, Kaliganj. Satkhira. Credit: UNICEF/UNI532511/Islam Bitu.
14. Credit: UNICEF India.