Alive & Thrive is a multi-year initiative that began in 2009 to combat global child undernutrition through interventions to support appropriate infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices. The initiative began with work in Viet Nam, Ethiopia, and Bangladesh as first-phase countries to demonstrate proof-of-concept models. The Alive & Thrive initiative implemented large-scale interventions, including interpersonal counselling, mass media campaigns, community mobilization, and policy advocacy efforts. Together, these interventions aimed to address the multiple behavioral, social, and policy barriers to optimal IYCF practices. In 2014, Alive & Thrive expanded work into several other countries, with an additional focus on behavior-change interventions to address maternal nutrition.

IFPRI’s role in this program of work, which is led by FHI360, has been to evaluate the impact of these integrated approaches to improving IYCF practices, child nutrition, and child development. Between 2009 and 2014, multicomponent program evaluations were designed using rigorous impact evaluation methods, including randomization (where possible), and costing studies. Integrated process evaluations were designed to provide insight into how program impacts were achieved and where interventions could be strengthened. In addition, evaluations in all three countries included research on policy processes, to examine the ways in which Alive & Thrive and partners strengthened the policy environment for optimal IYCF practices. From 2015 onward, IFPRI and Alive & Thrive have continued the collaboration to study issues related to program sustainability, delivery of maternal nutrition interventions, and other topics related to strengthening the quality and scale of nutrition behavior-change interventions.

IFPRI’s research collaboration with Alive & Thrive has generated several high-impact journal publications, conference presentations, and datasets, contributing to the global evidence base on scaling up nutrition interventions.