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With research staff from more than 60 countries, and offices across the globe, IFPRI provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries.

Ahmed Akhter

researcher spotlight

Akhter Ahmed

Akhter Ahmed is a Senior Research Fellow in the IFPRI’s Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion Unit and Country Representative for IFPRI Bangladesh. He has worked on strategies for agricultural and rural development, social protection, and women’s empowerment to reduce poverty, food insecurity, and undernutrition in developing countries including Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Malawi, the Philippines, and Turkey.

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Projects

Transform Nutrition West Africa is a regional platform to enable effective policy and programmatic action on nutrition, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation from 2017-2021 and led by the International Food Policy Research Institute. We work across the region but our focal countries are: Burkina Faso, Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal. We want you to join us and be part of a network of people and organisations in West Africa using evidence to generate change.

Transform Nutrition West Africa is developing partnerships with a number of regional, continental, and international platforms. We also seek to be as responsive as possible to nutrition information needs in the region.

Project duration: 2017 – 2021

Contact

Stuart Gillespie

Funders

Gates Foundation

CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH) led by IFPRI

Project partners

DataDENT

Countdown 2030

Alive & Thrive

UNICEF

West African Health Organisation (WAHO)

Scaling Up Nutrition

Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)

Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP)

Regional Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System (ReSAKSS)

interactive
PUBLICATIONS
RECORDINGS
presentations

Publications

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Report

Nutrition-relevant policy in West Africa: A comprehensive review

2022Casu, Laura; Diatta, Ampa Dogui; Uzhova, Irina; Dramé, Mariame; Kaboré, Judith; Touré, Fanta; Becquey, Elodie; Verstraeten, Roosmarijn
Details

Nutrition-relevant policy in West Africa: A comprehensive review

Malnutrition continues to be a major health burden in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and is one of the predominant risk factors for ill health and death, with women and children being most vulnerable. Most countries in the region show variable, little, or no progress in meeting most of the global nutrition goals (Development Initiatives 2020); therefore, stunting and wasting among children under five (U5s), low birth weight, anemia among women of reproductive age (WRA), and the epidemic of overweight/obesity remain priorities for West African policymakers. None of the countries in the region are on track to meet the targets for low birth weight (LBW), anemia among WRA (Development Initiatives 2020), or overweight/obesity; and nutrition-related noncommunicable diseases (NR-NCDs) are on the rise (Verstraeten and Diop 2018; Development Initiatives 2020; Popkin, Corvalan, Grummer-Strawn 2020). With the COVID-19 pandemic aggravating the pre-existing malnutrition burden (Osendarp et al. 2021), and the 2030 deadline for reaching the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) fast approaching, it is a critical time for action. The region’s unequal and limited progress has been attributed to, among other things, political instability and lack of resources (Development Initiatives 2020). Suggestions for ways to achieve SDG Target 17.14 (Enhance policy coherence for sustainable development) have included better implementation of policies and actions in response to specific identified needs and priorities; a further suggested approach is increased coherence and coordination across nutrition-relevant sectors (Pelletier et al. 2012; Gillespie et al. 2013; Hawkes 2016). Policy coherence analysis also promises to be an important tool for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of food policy and practice (Parsons and Hawkes 2019).

Year published

2022

Authors

Casu, Laura; Diatta, Ampa Dogui; Uzhova, Irina; Dramé, Mariame; Kaboré, Judith; Touré, Fanta; Becquey, Elodie; Verstraeten, Roosmarijn

Citation

Casu, Laura; Diatta, Ampa Dogui; Uzhova, Irina; Dramé, Mariame; Kaboré, Judith; Touré, Fanta; Becquey, Elodie; and Verstraeten, Roosmarijn. 2022. Nutrition-relevant policy in West Africa: A comprehensive review. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). https://hdl.handle.net/10568/141410

Keywords

Western Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Africa; Policies; Nutrition Policies; Malnutrition; Nutrition; Targeting

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Report

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Journal Article

Understanding drivers of stunting reduction in Nigeria from 2003 to 2018: A regression analysis

2022Adeyemi, Olutayo; Touré, Mariama; Covic, Namukolo M.; Bold, Mara van den; Nisbett, Nicholas; Headey, Derek D.
Details

Understanding drivers of stunting reduction in Nigeria from 2003 to 2018: A regression analysis

Nigeria is a high burden country for stunting. Stunting reduction has been slow and characterized by unequal progress across the 36 states and federal capital territory of the country. This study aimed to assess the changes in prevalence of stunting and growth determinants from 2003 to 2018, identify factors that predicted the change in stunting, and project future stunting prevalence if these predicted determinants improve. Trend and linear decomposition analyses of growth outcomes and determinants were conducted using 2003, 2008, 2013, and 2018 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey data. Pooled data included 57,507 children 0 to 59 months old. Findings show that stunting and severe stunting significantly reduced from 43 to 37% and 23% to 17%, respectively (p < 0.001), between 2003 and 2018. Disturbingly, height-for-age z-scores at birth significantly decreased, indicating risks of potential future stunting increase. Improvements in nine stunting determinants (maternal body mass index, maternal height, ≥ 4 antenatal care visits, health facility delivery, reduced child illnesses, asset index, maternal education, paternal education, and preceding birth interval) predicted stunting reductions in children 0–59 months. Few of these nine determinants improved in subpopulations with limited stunting progress. Intra-sectoral and multisectoral coordination were potentially inadequate; 12% of children had received all of three selected health sector interventions along a continuum of care and 6% had received all of six selected multisector interventions. Forward looking projections suggest that increased efforts to improve the nine predictors of stunting change can reduce under-five stunting in Nigeria to ≤ 27% in the short term.

Year published

2022

Authors

Adeyemi, Olutayo; Touré, Mariama; Covic, Namukolo M.; Bold, Mara van den; Nisbett, Nicholas; Headey, Derek D.

Citation

Adeyemi, O., Toure, M., Covic, N., van den Bold, M.,· Nisbett, N. and Headey, D. 2022. Understanding drivers of stunting reduction in Nigeria from 2003 to 2018: A regression analysis. Food Security 14:995–1011.

Country/Region

Nigeria

Keywords

Africa; Western Africa; Stunting; Nutrition; Food Security; Scaling Up; Growth Disorders; Econometrics; Child Stunting

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-022-01279-8 Source record

Record type

Journal Article

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Journal Article

Stories of change in nutrition in Burkina Faso 1992–2018: A micro-level perspective

2022Becquey, Elodie; Sombié, Issa; Touré, Mariama; Turowska, Zuzanna; Buttarelli, Emilie; Nisbett, Nicholas
Details

Stories of change in nutrition in Burkina Faso 1992–2018: A micro-level perspective

Looking back at what has effectively improved nutrition may inform policy makers on how to accelerate progress to end all forms of malnutrition by 2030. As under-five stunting declined substantially in Burkina Faso, we analyzed its nutrition story at the micro-level. We conducted a regression-decomposition analysis to identify demographic and health drivers associated with change in height-for-age using longitudinal, secondary, nationally-representative data. We triangulated results with findings from semi-structured community interviews (n = 91) in two “model communities” with a history of large stunting reduction. We found that improvement in immunization coverage, assets accumulation and reduction in open defecation were associated with 23%, 10% and 6.1% of the improvement in height-for-age, respectively. Associations were also found with other education, family planning, health and WASH indicators. Model communities acknowledged progress in the coverage and quality of nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive sectoral programs co-located at the community level, especially those delivered through the health and food security sectors, though delivery challenges remained in a context of systemic poverty and persistent food insecurity. Burkina Faso’s health sector’s success in improving coverage of nutrition and healthcare programs may have contributed to improvements in child nutrition alongside other programmatic improvements in the food security, WASH and education sectors. Burkina Faso should continue to operationalize sectoral nutrition-sensitive policies into higher-quality programs at scale, building on its success stories such as vaccination. Community leverage gaps and data gaps need to be filled urgently to pressure for and monitor high coverage, quality delivery, and nutrition impact of agriculture, education, and WASH interventions.

Year published

2022

Authors

Becquey, Elodie; Sombié, Issa; Touré, Mariama; Turowska, Zuzanna; Buttarelli, Emilie; Nisbett, Nicholas

Citation

Becquey, Elodie; Sombié, Issa; Touré, Mariama; Turowska, Zuzanna; Buttarelli, Emilie; and Nisbett, Nicholas. 2022. Stories of change in nutrition in Burkina Faso 1992–2018: A micro-level perspective. Food Security 14: 937–950. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-022-01274-z

Country/Region

Burkina Faso

Keywords

Western Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Africa; Maternal and Child Health; Child Nutrition; Policies; Health; Water; Malnutrition; Nutrition; Children; Hygiene; Food Security; Maternal Nutrition; Women

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-022-01274-z Source record

Project

Agriculture for Nutrition and Health

Record type

Journal Article

Blogs

Transform Nutrition West Africa builds knowledge for decision-makers
IFPRI Blog
 | 
March 07, 2025

Transform Nutrition West Africa builds knowledge for decision-makers

By Tamsin Zandstra, Roos Verstraeten, Ampa Dogui Diatta, Loty Diop, and Mariama Touré

Informing policies in four countries.

Transform Nutrition West Africa: Time to build on the momentum
IFPRI Blog
 | 
September 17, 2021

Transform Nutrition West Africa: Time to build on the momentum

By Roosmarijn Verstraeten

A four-country project's foundation for knowledge sharing and policy collaboration.

Events

Analysis of nutrition research networks in West Africa: Application of social network analysis to co-authorship data to understand and enhance collaboration
IFPRI Program/Country Event

 | 

April 20, 2020, 2:00 – 3:00 pm

Analysis of nutrition research networks in West Africa: Application of social network analysis to co-authorship data to understand and enhance collaboration

This webinar will present results from social network analysis (SNA) of nutrition networks in West Africa. A sub-component of the systematic review, this work applies SNA to authorship and affiliation data collected for the review to illuminate the patterns of collaboration and the structures of collaborative networks. The results highlight how SNA can be used […]

Funders

Gates Foundation
CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH) led by IFPRI

Team members

Elodie Becquey

Elodie Becquey

Senior Research Fellow, Africa,
Nutrition, Diets, and Health

Loty Diop

Loty Diop

Senior Research Analyst, Nutrition,
Diets, and Health

Other

Topics/Countries

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