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Lilia Bliznashka

Lily Bliznashka is a Research Fellow in the Nutrition, Diets, and Health Unit. Her research focuses on assessing the effectiveness of multi-input nutrition-sensitive and nutrition-specific interventions and the mechanisms through which they work to improve maternal and child health and nutrition globally. She has worked in Burkina Faso, Burundi, Tanzania, and Uganda.

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Maternal and child nutrition and development in Balaka and Ntcheu districts: Findings from MAZIKO inception studies

2023Save the Children
Details

Maternal and child nutrition and development in Balaka and Ntcheu districts: Findings from MAZIKO inception studies

MAZIKO is a five-year integrated Maternal and Child Grant pilot project targeting mothers and children under five years in eight Traditional Authorities in Balaka and Ntcheu districts. The aim of the project is to improve child growth and development by combining government recommended multi-sectoral social and behaviour change, and capacity strengthening interventions, with monthly cash transfers to improve maternal and child nutrition and development outcomes. In the first year of the programme, several qualitative and quantitative studies were conducted to inform the design of the project. These included a) a baseline quantitative survey targeting 2,686 households with a pregnant woman or child under 2 years in 262 villages; b) a qualitative study, using immersion research and people centered design approaches in 12 households with a pregnant woman or child under 2 years; c) a district capacity assessment to identify bottlenecks in service provision for nutrition and early child development; and d) a Cost of the Diet study to estimate the cost and affordability of a nutritious diet and the role that cash transfers can play to reduce the affordability gap. All studies were done in Ntcheu and Balaka, while the Cost of Diet study used national data. Key findings across the studies are summarised below, followed by more detailed findings for each study.

Year published

2023

Authors

Save the Children

Citation

Save the Children. 2023. Maternal and child nutrition and development in Balaka and Ntcheu districts: Findings from MAZIKO inception studies. London, UK; Washington, DC: Save the Children; International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). https://hdl.handle.net/10568/140250

Country/Region

Malawi

Keywords

Southern Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Africa; Eastern Africa; Child Nutrition; Social Protection; Research; Cash Transfers; Behaviour

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Record type

Report

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Brief

Improving child nutrition and development through preschools in Malawi

2019Gelli, Aulo; Margolies, Amy; Santacroce, Marco; Twalibu, Aisha; Roschnik, Natalie; Chidalengwa, George; Phiri, Peter; Moestue, Helen; Katundu, Mangani
Details

Improving child nutrition and development through preschools in Malawi

Some 12,000 community preschools in Malawi serve 45 percent of the county’s preschool population. Yet because of food insecurity and communities’ difficulties in providing preschoolers with a midmorning meal, these schools may not survive. To address this challenge, Save the Children and the University of Malawi’s Chancellor College designed a preschool-based nutrition and agriculture intervention aimed at helping rural communities to produce and prepare more nutritious foods for preschools and for households year-round. An IFPRI-led cluster-randomized controlled trial in 60 preschools in the southeastern district of Zomba found that after just one year of the intervention, agricultural production, the quality and frequency of preschool meals, and household and child dietary diversity had all improved. The intervention also had an impact on the diets and growth of the preschoolers’ younger siblings. These results suggest that preschools can provide an effective platform for scaling-up nutrition and agriculture interventions, benefiting not only the preschools but also communities, households, and children in their first 1,000 days.

Year published

2019

Authors

Gelli, Aulo; Margolies, Amy; Santacroce, Marco; Twalibu, Aisha; Roschnik, Natalie; Chidalengwa, George; Phiri, Peter; Moestue, Helen; Katundu, Mangani

Citation

Gelli, Aulo; Margolies, Amy; Santacroce, Marco; Twalibu, Aisha; Roschnik, Natalie; Chidalengwa, George; Phiri, Peter; Moestue, Helen; and Katundu, Mangani. 2018. Improving child nutrition and development through preschools in Malawi. Project Note. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). https://hdl.handle.net/10568/147236

Country/Region

Malawi

Keywords

Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Southern Africa; Eastern Africa; Child Nutrition; Community Organizations; Child Development; Preschool Children; Nutrition; Preschool Education; Child Care; Child Feeding; Health Diet; Food Security; Rural Areas

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Project

Agriculture for Nutrition and Health

Record type

Brief

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Opinion Piece

Improving child nutrition and development through community-based child care centres (CBCCs) in Malawi

2018Twalibu, Aisha; Roschnik, Natalie; Gelli, Aulo; Katundu, Mangani; Chidalengwa, George; Phiri, Peter; Moestue, Helen
Details

Improving child nutrition and development through community-based child care centres (CBCCs) in Malawi

Community-based childcare centres (CBCCs) are community-managed rural pre-schools serving 45 per cent of the child population. Provision of mid-morning porridge is a key incentive to attend. Save the Children and University of Malawi Chancellor College developed a nutrition and agriculture training programme for CBCCs to overcome identified challenges to CBBC food provision.

Year published

2018

Authors

Twalibu, Aisha; Roschnik, Natalie; Gelli, Aulo; Katundu, Mangani; Chidalengwa, George; Phiri, Peter; Moestue, Helen

Citation

Twalibu, Aisha; Roschnik, Natalie; Gelli, Aulo; Katundu, Mangani; Chidalengwa, George; Phiri, Peter; and Moestue, Helen. 2018. Improving child nutrition and development through community-based child care centres (CBCCs) in Malawi. Field Exchange 57(March 2018): 68. https://www.ennonline.net/fex/57/cbccsinmalawi

Country/Region

Malawi

Keywords

Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Southern Africa; Eastern Africa; Child Nutrition; Child Development; Health; Agriculture; Nutrition

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Record type

Opinion Piece