Platform for African – European Partnership in Agricultural Research for Development

Monday, April 12, 2021

WEBINAR: Development of Institutional and Human Research Capacity for Nutrition

7 April 7th, at 9am (ET). Innovation Lab for Nutrition webinar, "Sustainable Development of Institutional and Human Research Capacity for Nutrition.” This session explored strategies for nutrition capacity building, drawing on lessons learned from Nutrition Innovation Lab work conducted in Nepal, Uganda, and India.

You can view all webinar recordings on the website.

Enhancing countries’ institutional and human capacities to identify and address their own nutrition needs and develop successful nutrition research and programs is a key objective of the Nutrition Innovation Lab’s applied research activities in its focus countries. From 2010 to 2020, the Nutrition Innovation Lab, in close collaboration with in-country stakeholders, academic institutions, governments, and ministries has enhanced institutional and human capacity through long-term graduate level trainings, short-term research workshops, seminars, symposia, and conferences. In this webinar, we will highlight the capacity development activities conducted in Nepal, Uganda, and India and explore lessons learned and policy and programmatic implications for continued long-term support to develop human and institutional nutrition capacity.
  • Moderator: Dr. Swetha Manohar- Dr. Swetha Manohar is a Fellow at the Johns Hopkins University’s Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). 
  • Ram Shrestha- Ram Shrestha is currently based in Nepal, assisting CAFODAT College to improve the quality of M.Sc. Nutrition and Dietetics course. 
  • Dr. Rebecca Kuriyan Raj- Dr. Rebecca Kuriyan Raj is Professor and Head, Division of Nutrition, St John’s Medical College & St John’s Research Institute, Bengaluru. 
  • Dr. Eunice A. Bonsi- Dr. Eunice A. Bonsi is Extension/Research Professor and faculty in the Department of Food and Nutritional Sciences, State Extension Program Leader and Specialist in Food and Nutrition, and the Director/Coordinator of the Expanded Foods and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) with the Cooperative Extension Service in the College of Agriculture, Environmental and Nutrition Sciences (CAENS) at Tuskegee University, Alabama, US. 
  • Dr. Bernard Bashaasha- Dr. Bernard Bashaasha is a Professor Agricultural & Development Economics and Principal, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at Makerere University, Uganda. 

The previous webinar, Effective Governance for Nutrition Programming: Lessons from Ethiopia and Nepal, recording can be viewed here.

You can access all previous recordings and slides and keep up to date on upcoming webinars at the Innovation Lab for Nutrition website and at the USAID Advancing Nutrition website.

About the Innovation Lab for Nutrition:
The Innovation Lab for Nutrition is a consortium of U.S. universities led by Tufts University and is comprised of faculty, staff, and students from Tuskegee University, Purdue University, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the Harvard T.H Chan School of Public Health, and the Boston Children’s Hospital. We have formed partnerships and have long-standing relationships with academic, non-governmental and governmental institutions in Bangladesh, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Jordan, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Nepal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, and Timor Leste. These partnerships have been crucial for supporting and conducting contextualized research and capacity building. We are proud of our focus on training professionals in the countries where we work to conduct rigorous research in nutrition, agriculture, agricultural economics, nutrition epidemiology, and food and nutrition policy.

Over the past ten years the Innovation Lab for Nutrition has supported the higher education degrees of individuals in Africa and Asia. We have also held trainings, symposia, and conferences in the countries where we work in order to engage and collaborate with stakeholders and policymakers to disseminate research findings and improve nutrition and agriculture policy and programming. The Innovation Lab for Nutrition is committed to not only building a broader body of knowledge around nutrition-agriculture linkages, but to intentionally engaging individuals and partners in the countries where we work so that the research findings and utilized in-country.

The in-country partners include government bodies such as Nepal’s National Planning Commission, the Child Health Division at the Ministry of Health and Population in Nepal, Uganda’s National Planning Authority, the Nepal National Agricultural Research Council, the Department of Nutrition and HIV and the Department for Clinical Services at the Ministry of Health, Malawi, non-governmental institutions, both international and local, such as Helen Keller International Nepal and Bangladesh, Nepali Technical Assistance Group, and the Association for Food and Nutrition Security (ANSA-Mozambique), academic partners including Makerere University in Uganda, Patan Academy of Health Sciences in Nepal, Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources, College of Medicine, University of Malawi in Blantyre, Malawi, Universidade de Lúrio in Mozambique, Bangladesh Agricultural University in Bangladesh, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the United Kingdom, United Nations agencies (UNICEF and FAO), and operational programs in the field such as USAID Suaahara in Nepal, USAID CHNA in Jordan and USAID Community Connector in Uganda.

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