Welcome:

• Shenggen Fan, Director General, IFPRI (Video)

Speakers:

• Purnima Menon, Senior Research Fellow in the Poverty, Health, and Nutrition Division, IFPRI (Presentation | Video)
• Karin Lapping, Project Director, Alive & Thrive (Presentation | Video 1 | Video 2)
• Kaosar Afsana, Director of the Health, Nutrition and Population Programme of BRAC (Video)
• Ellen Piwoz, Senior Program Officer, Nutrition Division of Global Development Program of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (Video)

Chair:

• Marie Ruel, Director of the Poverty, Health, and Nutrition Division, IFPRI (Video)
• Q&A Video

Can large-scale initiatives aimed at changing behaviors improve the diet quality of mothers, infants, and young children? Alive & Thrive—a multiyear, global initiative—works to improve maternal, infant, and young child nutrition, using multiple social and behavior-change strategies. Since 2009, IFPRI researchers have conducted a set of rigorous impact- and process-evaluation studies on Alive & Thrive’s large-scale, high-quality behavior change communications interventions in three countries—Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Vietnam. These studies provide evidence on how such large-scale nutrition initiatives can achieve their goals using strategies that mobilize health workers, mass media, and community groups to shape behavior change.  Research findings have been published in leading academic journals.

This seminar presents the key findings from the set of studies, shares insights on the policy and contextual relevance of the results, and discusses the factors that led to the Alive & Thrive successful long-term research partnership.