Growth through nutrition activity : midterm performance evaluation

The evaluation included document review, key informant interviews,focus group discussions, transect walks, an online survey, and a computer-assisted telephone interview survey. GTN, led by Save the Children, is USAID/Ethiopia’s flagship multisectoral nutrition and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) activity, focused on system strengthening of health, nutrition, agriculture (including livestock and crops), and WASH (including hardware and software), all aimed toward reducing childhood stunting. GTN works with multiple levels of each system—national, regional, zonal, woreda, kebele, preservice training institutions, and the private sector for WASH. The activity’s targeted regions are Amhara; Oromia; Sidama; Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People’s Region (SNNPR); and Tigray. GTN produced important contributions to system strengthening of all technical areas. Awareness of nutrition-sensitive agriculture, consumption of a diverse diet by women of reproductive age and young children and use of improved sanitation products were generated at all levels, including most vulnerable households (MVHHs). GTN tested implementation strategies, such as enhanced community conversations and women’s village savings and loan associations and provided evidence of best practices for scale. However, benefits did not systematically reach all targeted MVHHs, leaving many of these households unable to consistently provide women of reproductive age and young children with a diversified diet and reduce fecal-oral transmission.