As the world approaches 2030, the timeline for achieving the ‘Zero Hunger’ target of the Sustainable Development Goals keeps widening. The unprecedented challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with climate change and the impact of ongoing conflicts, including the war in Ukraine, have exacerbated the global malnutrition crisis and jeopardized years of hard-won development gains. Increasingly high levels of food insecurity in the target countries has exacerbated the susceptibility of women and adolescent girls to various forms of sexual and gender-based violence, as well as early and unwanted pregnancies. These factors contribute to a significant number of adolescent girls dropping out of school, which prevents them from reaching their potential and improving food and nutrition security for themselves, their families and their communities.

The situational analysis of REACTS-IN target countries revealed that these interrelated crises are projected to drive millions of people into high levels of acute, moderate and severe food insecurity across all four countries. In Kenya, approximately 942,000 children aged 6-59 months are affected by acute malnutrition, while a further 134,000 pregnant or lactating women urgently require treatment for acute malnutrition. Likewise, in Somalia, as of May 2022, an estimated 1.5M children under five, representing 45% of the total population of children, face acute malnutrition, including 386,400 who are likely to be severely malnourished. Furthermore, anaemia is a major public health problem in all target countries, with prevalence rates of 43.1%, 42.8%, 51.8% and 56.1% among children under five in Bangladesh, Kenya, Somalia and Tanzania respectively.

To reclaim the nutrition gains lost in the past few years, with a particular focus on the gender dimensions of the nutrition crisis we will work alongside our partners World Vision Canada, HarvestPlus, the Canadian Association for Global Health and McGill University to promote the scale-up of gender transformative, evidence-based interventions that aim to remove the barriers that hinder women and girls from realizing access to good nutrition, health and sexual reproductive and reproductive health rights (SRHR).

Led by World Vision Canada, this project will:

• Ensure women and adolescent girls have equitable access to nutrition, health, WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene) and SRHR practices
• Enhance the availability and quality of gender-equitable and responsive nutrition, health and SRH services
• Strengthen the effectiveness of local stakeholders in realizing the nutrition and SRH rights of women and girls

Nutrition International will support the development of costed multisectoral national anaemia prevention and treatment plans, including weekly iron and folic acid supplementation (WIFAS) for adolescent girls, delivered through schools in Kenya, Tanzania and Bangladesh. Additionally, we will develop a comprehensive gender-responsive nutrition and health package designed for adolescent girls and boys. This package will engage teachers and student leaders to help facilitate access to nutrition and health services, including WIFAS programs within school settings. To inform this package, evidence will be gathered through sex- and gender-based analyses to identify knowledge, attitudes, practices, gaps, challenges, and opportunities for improving adolescent nutrition and reducing anaemia.