Photo credit: Akram Ali/CARE Bangladesh

Malnutrition has complex determinants that cut across multiple sectors. This means the task of identifying policy and institutional barriers and facilitators of pro-nutrition agricultural development is not straightforward. The broader development landscape has also become much more complex in recent years with the rise of large NGOs, alongside traditional bilateral and multilateral partners, as well as other private sector actors. It is therefore crucially important to understand which actors are influencing nutrition outcomes in the region.

Under this theme and linking with our work on agri-food policies and markets we have undertaken a series of landscaping and review activities across the region. These will contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the current evidence base, relevant policies, programmes and initiatives and systems of innovation.

The questions we have sought to answer are:

1. What do we know about nutrition and agri-food system linkages in South Asia?
2. Which public and private sector organisations, and individuals, are actively shaping the policy space?
3. What are the major opportunities, challenges and gaps with regard to knowledge and action?

This work-stream is foundational to LANSA in that it builds on past and emerging work (including existing LANSA and Transform Nutrition research programme evidence review summaries and the 2013 Lancet Nutrition Series). 

In 2013, we mapped: a) existing evidence, b) policies, programmes and initiatives and c) key stakeholders (individuals and organisations) across the public, private and civil society sectors. We interviewed leading agriculture and nutrition stakeholders in Bangladesh, Pakistan and India using a specially developed interview protocol (PDF). We brought together key stakeholders in Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and subsequently Afghanistan to deliberate on the findings and the issues raised by the initial findings. We also produced country policy landscape analysis for Bangladesh, Pakistan and India.

This initial work and stakeholder consultations has helped identify opportunities, gaps, constraints and challenges with regard to future research. Stakeholders’ feedback in the consultation meetings guided identification and prioritisation of policy-relevant knowledge gaps and led to a call for proposals.