Description
Reduced chronic malnutrition (also referred to as ‘stunting’) is one of CARE's main measures of success for our work in food and nutrition security. As a proxy for many aspects of well-being, freedom from stunting reflects success on many fronts, including food systems; health systems; education; water, sanitation and hygiene infrastructure; and safety nets, to name a few. Since stunting arises during the first 1000 days – from conception through the child's second birthday – and essentially cannot be reversed thereafter, prevention by ensuring adequate growth and nutritional status is critical for the fulfilment of rights across people's whole lifetime. CARE's programming thus promotes the integration of nutrition-sensitive approaches into our work in water, sanitation and hygiene; economic development; food security; education; and health to provide the foundations for good nutrition. We also focus on maternal and adolescent nutrition as important outcomes in their own right and on the nutritional status of women’s children in the future, should they choose to have any. Given the imbalance in domestic and care work between women and men, CARE promotes a gender-transformative approach to nutrition, engaging with men and boys to recognise, reduce and redistribute domestic work and thus help reduce women's time in poverty and increase the quality of time spent on child feeding and stimulation.
Some programmes additionally focus on nutrition-specific approaches that address the immediate determinants of fetal, child and maternal nutrition and development. Specifically, they focus on key home-based practices that produce good nutrition outcomes; as such, they employ social and behaviour change strategies to encourage the adoption of these behaviours, including accessing supplements, such as iron folate, vitamin A, zinc or micronutrient powders. In our programmes, CARE and our partners implement an integrated model, developed through 10 years of programming across multiple countries, where key nutrition-sensitive interventions support a core nutrition-specific behaviour-based approach. This not only ensures the promotion of improved nutrition practices but also helps to provide the necessary foundation for adopting them. This integrated model is grounded in the interventions endorsed in The Lancet’s 2013 series on nutrition.
Overarching commitment (for commitments submitted pre-2025)
Title
Improving nutrition approaches
Description
Improving nutrition must happen through local structures or collectives, such as care or savings groups, and integrated approaches. This commitment will focus on both nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive approaches. By focusing on these two approaches, we will directly affect nutrition for women and children, support dietary diversity and promote positive nutrition practices. CARE also focuses on male engagement and sectoral interventions such as homestead food production; improved water, sanitation and hygiene access; and agriculture and natural resource management practices and models that prioritise nutrition outcomes. Building on successes, we will build stronger service delivery and coordination systems across stakeholder platforms that improve access to and delivery of quality health, agriculture, water, climate and education services for improved nutrition.
GNR assessment
| Verification status |
Unverified
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|---|---|
| SMARTness index |
Low
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Details
| Target population characteristic |
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|---|---|
| Global nutrition target(s) |
Childhood wasting
Exclusive breastfeeding
Childhood stunting
Anaemia
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| Nutrition Action Classification(s) |
Impact >
Undernutrition
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| Linked event(s) |
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| N4G Summit theme(s) |
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Measurement
| Key indicator | Percentage of children (aged 0–59 months) experiencing malnutrition, stunting and wasting |
|---|---|
| Measurement plan | Unknown |
| Value | Measurement date | |
|---|---|---|
| Baseline | TBD | 2021 |
| Target | TBD | November 2030 |
Progress
| Value | Measurement date | Status | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Progress report | Contributed to 246,224 children under 5 years escaping stunting; lowered percentage of children 0–59 months experiencing malnutrition (stunting, wasting or overweight) | November 2023 |
Progress not able to be assessed
Despite the commitment maker’s active participation in the process, they were unable to provide the required information about the baseline data or the progress indicator's updated (latest) level or status, or the data provided were not in a format allowing calculation of progress.
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