Fish provide essential nutrients for the critical window of growth and development in the first 1000 days of life and are thus an attractive option for inclusion in both nutrition-sensitive and nutrition-specific programming. We conducted a systematic review of the evidence for fish and fish-based products for nutrition and health outcomes during the first 1000 days of life in low- and middle-income countries, searching the peer-reviewed and grey literature from 1999 to 2020. Databases searched included PubMed, Web of Science, EMBASE, Proquest, and the Clinical Trials repository. Our search returned 1,135 articles, 39 of which met the inclusion criteria. All studies were dual evaluated for risk of bias (RoB). Of the included studies, 18 measured maternal health and nutrition outcomes and 24 measured infant/child outcomes (three measured both). Our search uncovered ten impact evaluations, all of which measured consumption of fish or fish-based complementary food products in children aged 6–24 months of age. We did not find strong evidence for fish consumption in children improving child growth from the impact evaluations, however the studies were highly heterogeneous in their design and were likely underpowered to detect an effect. Results from observational studies were mixed but provided evidence that adding fish to maternal and child diets is associated with improved nutrition outcomes, such as reducing the risk of anemia and improving vitamin D status. Given the nutrient richness of fish, and the fact that production is often more environmentally friendly compared with other animal source foods, more robust evidence is needed on the role of fish consumption in nutrition interventions to inform policy and programming recommendations in low- and middle-income countries.
The 2015-2016 El Niño had large impacts globally. The effects were not as great as anticipated in Kenya, however, leading some commentators to call it a 'non-event'. Our study uses a novel combination of participatory Climate Vulnerability and Capacity Analysis tools, and new and existing social and biophysical data, to analyse vulnerability to, and the multidimensional impacts of, the 2015-2016 El Niño episode in southern coastal Kenya. Using a socialecological systems lens and a unique dataset, our study reveals impacts overlooked by conventional analysis. We show how El Niño stressors interact with and amplify existing vulnerabilities to differentially impact local ecosystems and people. The policy significance of this finding is that the development of specific national capacities to deal with El Niño events is insufficient; it will be necessary to also address local vulnerabilities to everyday and recurrent stressors and shocks to build resilience to the effects of El Niño and other extremes in climate and weather.
Agri-food system integration has the potential to increase and add value to agricultural production, reduce cost of and dependency on external inputs, generate additional income to farmers, and encourage the diversification of outputs and diets. Agri-food system integrations such as livestock-fish, poultry-fish, crop-livestock and rice-fish farming have been well documented in academic literature. However, information on fish and root, tuber and banana (RTB) crops integration is scarcely available, despite their worldwide cultural, dietary, and economic importance. This article, which is informed by a narrative literature review and ground-truthing through key informant interviews, documents existing linkages between two agri-food systems-fish and RTB-and identifies opportunities and challenges for strengthening their integration. We found that recorded instances of fish-RTB integration are limited and predominantly discuss production-related activities.Nevertheless, initial evidence suggests that there are important livelihood-enhancing opportunities as well as environmental, nutrition and food-security related benefits, which need to be considered. These include the potential to improve the nutritional status of vulnerable populations and lower the cost of fish production and thus improve the livelihoods of small-scale fish farmers. Further field-based research is recommended to explore these outcomes in more detail.
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