Community-based approaches to combating malnutrition and poor education among girls in resource-poor settings: report of a large scale intervention in Pakistan

This article uses the Tawana Pakistan Project (TPP) as a case study of how to promote self-sustaining improvements in nutrition status. The programme used a participatory approach to mobilisation around malnutrition, had a transparent information system for monitoring resources, and brought a focus on deeper structural issues to the analysis of malnutrition. We argue that Tawana was cancelled because it did not provide sufficient opportunities for leakage and diversion. This amply illustrates the political nature of nutrition. Yet efforts to reduce malnutrition continue to focus primarily on technical fixes. For long-term change researchers and programme implementers will need to understand the political space they operate within. Tawana was not perfect but it offered a glimpse of a different way forward, one that struck a balance between inclusiveness and action; transparency and accountability; and health and social science perspectives. It affected politics and was undone by them. It is not too late to include these concepts and approaches in future nutrition policies and interventions.

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Implications of gender and household roles in Indigenous Maya communities in Guatemala for child nutrition interventions

Wehr

Chary

Webb

et al. 2014

IJIH

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Guatemala's Indigenous Maya population suffers from some of the highest rates of chronic child malnutrition (stunting) in the world. Most attempts to improve child nutrition in this context target mothers for behavioural interventions. In this study, we use focus group data from two Indigenous Maya communities to explore gender and intra-household power dynamics as they relate to child-rearing practices and to nutritional decision-making, including food purchasing. Findings of the study show that mothers are not autonomous with regard to child rearing and nutrition decision-making. In particular, paternal grandmothers are authoritative sources of knowledge and exert significant power over food-purchasing decisions. Furthermore, men overestimate the degree to which decision-making is shared with their wives, and the economic contributions that mothers make to household budgets often go unrecognized. These findings underscore that nutritional interventions in Indigenous Maya communities must be sensitive to the traditional intra-household authority structure and seek to engage not only mothers, but also fathers and paternal grandmothers in a productive collaboration. Furthermore, efforts must be made to increase recognition of the economic contributions of the mother to the household budget, and to recognize the implications of such economic work in terms of constraints on the mother's availability for childcare.

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Community-based approaches to combating malnutrition and poor education among girls in resource-poor settings: report of a large scale intervention in Pakistan

Abstract: Community-based approaches to combating malnutrition and poor education among girls in resource-poor settings: report of a large scale intervention in Pakistan

Cited by 9 publications

References 8 publications

Overemphasizing individual differences and overlooking systemic factors reinforces educational inequality

Overemphasizing individual differences and overlooking systemic factors reinforces educational inequality

Missing Dimensions in Addressing Child Malnutrition in Pakistan: Lessons from the Tawana Experience

Implications of gender and household roles in Indigenous Maya communities in Guatemala for child nutrition interventions

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