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What Is Multisectoral Nutrition Programming and Why Is It Important?

In May 2014, the U. S. Agency for International Development (USAID) released the 2014–2025 Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Strategy, the agency’s first overarching strategy emphasizing the need to address both the direct and underlying causes of malnutrition in order to have an impact on the problem. The strategy provides a blueprint for aligning the efforts of USAID’s Bureau of Global Health, the U.S. Government’s Feed the Future and Global Health initiatives, and the Office of Food for Peace’s (FFP) development and emergency programs, resilience activities, and other nutrition investments.

The determinants of nutritional status are multifaceted and include individual health status and access to health care; access to safe, nutritious, and diverse foods; access to safe water and proper sanitation facilities; conduction of optimal feeding, caregiving, and hygiene practices; and adequately spaced birth intervals. A 2013 Lancet series on maternal and child nutrition underscored that both nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive interventions are necessary to eliminate maternal and child malnutrition.
Nutrition-specific interventions help to ensure adequate food and nutrient intake and proper feeding, caregiving, and parenting practices.

Nutrition-sensitive interventions address food security; availability of adequate caregiving resources at the maternal, household, and community levels; and access to health services and a safe and hygienic environment. Multisectoral nutrition programming enables donors, countries, and implementers to address the multifactorial causes of national nutrition challenges by linking and integrating program design, delivery, and evaluation across disciplines and sectors.