Publication

Community-level perceptions of drivers of change in nutrition: Evidence from South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa

Published on 13 February 2025

Changes in the immediate, underlying and basic determinants of nutritional status at the community-and household-level are a logical and empirical prerequisite to reducing high levels of undernutrition in
high burden countries. This paper considers these factors directly from the perspective of community
members and frontline workers interviewed in six countries in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. In
each country, in-depth interviews were conducted with mothers, other community members and health workers to understand changes in health and nutrition practices, nutrition-specific interventions, underlying drivers and nutrition-sensitive interventions, and life conditions. Overall, the need for basic
improvements in livelihood opportunities and infrastructure are solidly underscored. Nutrition-specific
and -sensitive changes represented in most cases by deliberate government or NGO supported community interventions are rolling out at a mixed and uneven pace, but are having some significant
impacts where solidly implemented. The synthesis presented here provides an invaluable source of
information for understanding how community-level change occurred against a wider backdrop of national level progress.

Cite this publication

Nisbett, Nicholas; van den Bold, Mara; Gillespie, Stuart; Menon, Purnima; Davis, Peter; Roopnaraine, Terry; Kampman, Halie; Kohli, Neha; Singh, Akriti; and Warren, Andrea. 2017. Community-level perceptions of drivers of change in nutrition: Evidence from South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Global Food Security 13 (June 2017): 74-82. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2017.01.006

Publication details

published by
Elsevier
language
English

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