Nurture Every Future: Poshan

Nutrition

Nurture Every Future: Poshan aims to improve the wellbeing of children under five and their mothers in Nepal by strengthening the health system for nutrition, improving care and feeding practices, increasing household food security, promoting food safety and hygiene, and supporting women’s empowerment.

Addressing malnutrition among mothers and children in Nepal

While Nepal has experienced significant progress on improving the nutritional status of mothers and children, the situation, particularly for the most vulnerable populations, remains critical. According to the 2022 Demographic and Health Survey, an average of 25% of children under five years old are stunted (too short for their age) while child wasting (weighing too little for height) averages 8%, though can be as high as 19% depending on the location and time of year.

Undernutrition is more prevalent among vulnerable and marginalized populations, such as ethnic minority communities. One of the causes for these high malnutrition rates is poor child feeding practices with only 56% of children exclusively breastfed for the first six months of age. Anemia, a key risk factor affecting health and child growth, affects 43% of children under five and 34% of mothers.

Nepal has strong policies for supporting national health and nutrition goals, including the Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Plan III and the National Nutrition Policy. However, local health facilities lack physical and financial resources.

Health personnel, including Female Community Health Volunteers who work directly with households and communities, lack proper skills or training opportunities. Community Health Mother Groups, established by local governments as a mechanism for nutrition and health education and screening, are mostly inactive, thus slowing one of the approaches for referring children with malnutrition and monitoring child growth. These issues contribute to a lack of confidence in health and nutrition services.

Poshan’s approaches

Through generous funding by the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, CARE is partnering with iDE and local partners to implement the Poshan project in Nepal. Poshan, which means “nutrition” in Nepali, will directly reach 12,500 mothers and their families, including an estimated 5,500 children under the age of five, during its first year.

Strengthening health systems

Poshan is strengthening the health system in 25 municipalities across five districts by:

Building local health facilities and health worker capacity to deliver quality health and nutrition services.
Supplying critical equipment and supplies to ensure maternal health, safe and timely deliveries, and monitor and treat acute malnutrition among children under 5.
Promoting knowledge and use of essential nutrition and hygiene practices to increase demand for both nutrition services and more diverse diets.
Supporting local government health authorities to conduct regular community growth monitoring campaigns for children, screening for severe and moderate acute malnutrition, and ensuring timely referral to the proper health facilities for treatment and follow-up.
Supporting the government’s community health and nutrition delivery system by re-energizing and harnessing the Nepal government’s Health Mother Group mechanism.

Strengthening food market systems

At the same time, Poshan is engaging with these same households to increase the production, purchase, and consumption of safe, nutritious foods. Specifically, project partners are working with women farmers and their households to strengthen local food market systems by:

Promoting the production of a diversity of nutrient-rich foods within home gardens.
Building knowledge and skills in sustainable, climate-smart crop production, and marketing practices.
Increasing women’s control over their income and promoting household budgeting and decision-making skills to prioritize use of money earned from the sale of their crops toward family health, care, and education needs, inputs and investments required to sustain their livelihoods, and purchasing diverse healthy foods in markets.
Providing access to savings and financial services through group-based village savings and lending programs and building banking relationships through Kisan cards for purchasing agricultural inputs and products according to seasonal needs.

By strengthening both health and food systems for nutrition in target communities and by applying proven approaches that advance gender equality and shift societal norms, Poshan is sustaining women’s abilities to improve their own and their children’s well-being for years to come.