NaviNut project: Enhancing women’s agency in navigating changing food environments to improve child nutrition in African drylands
Start: Sep 2020 - End: Oct 2023

Project title
Enhancing women’s agency in navigating changing food environments to improve child nutrition in African drylands
Coordinating organization
German Institute for Tropical and Subtropical Agriculture
Consortium members
In Germany: SWUAS – South Westphalia University of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture; Prolinnova - PROmoting Local INNOVAtion in ecologically oriented agriculture and NRM – Network Northern Focal Point c/o Agrecol Association
In Kenya: CRDD – Center for Research and Development in Drylands; TICH – Tropical Institute of Community Health and Development; JKUAT – Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Department of Community Health;
In Benin: NSA-UP Department of Nutrition and Food Sciences, AESR-UP Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, both of the University of Parakou, Faculty of Agronomy; UAC – Faculty of Agricultural Sciences (FSA) at the University of Abomey-Calavi
Working Hypothesis
Malnutrition in drylands can effectively be overcome by a) understanding the complexity and dynamics of women’s decision-making in feeding their young children; b) designing healthy food environments by increasing accessibility and desirability of locally available, highly nutritious, traditional food products; and c) improving community health services by designing appropriate nutritional dialogue models that respond to women’s needs.
Project approach
NaviNut uses a transdisciplinary research approach. Scientists of different disciplines, women from the study area (in different roles as mothers, consumers/citizens, processors of traditional food products), and other value chain actors (e.g. community health personnel, social workers, kindergartens/schools, food processing micro- and small-scale enterprises (MSEs) engage in a multi-actor co-innovation processes for child nutrition and co-develop context-specific innovations taking actors’ room for manoeuvre into account. Technological innovations for small-scale processing and packaging will make it possible for women entrepreneurs and other actors to improve their livelihoods by producing and marketing healthy, safe, tasty and acceptable convenience products based on locally available, highly nutritious TFPs.
NaviNut uses eye-tracking data to inform labelling and advertising strategies and templates for improved information sharing on nutritional value of its products. It will develop communication strategies and materials related to child food and nutrition that appeal to mothers’ cognitive and emotional needs with the aim to nudge healthier purchase decisions. It will test an ITC tool to share visual and oral information on child nutrition derived from peer-to-peer exchanges.
NaviNut will identify gaps in the governmental support system for implementing sustainable and scalable child-nutrition interventions, including CHVs’ training needs to effectively support nutritious child-feeding practices. It will address the training needs of CHVs and build their capacity to facilitate an appropriate and respectful community-dialogue model.
Interface to dev. Projects
Extensive interfacing with development projects in Kenya and Benin via the consortium partners Prolinnova and CRDD with their multi-stakeholder platforms and community networks
Project countries
Benin, Kenya
Duration
01 Sep 2020 - 31 Oct 2023