Over 1 billion women and adolescent girls suffer from undernutrition, including micronutrient deficiencies and anemia. Undernutrition increases the risk of complications during pregnancy, affects fetal development and can lead to adverse birth outcomes. Overweight and obesity affect the health and well-being of adolescent girls and women throughout their lives.
FHI 360 has been a global leader in leveraging partnerships to improve women’s and girls’ nutrition for the past two decades. Our Alive & Thrive initiative has forged partnerships with country governments and research institutions around the world to conduct extensive research studies on the implementation of maternal and adolescent nutrition interventions. The initiative has also worked on advocacy efforts to influence policies and programs for women’s and girls’ nutrition in Africa and Southeast Asia. Our center for dietary assessment, Intake, developed the Global Diet Quality Score, which is the recommended measure of overall diet quality for women and girls and the first comprehensive metric of diet quality validated for global use that assesses a diet that is both adequate in nutrients and protective against diet-related noncommunicable diseases. Furthermore, our 1,000 Days initiative has transformed how we advocate for women’s nutrition by focusing on a woman’s own inherent right for long-term health and nutrition and framing good nutrition as a critical step toward gender equity.
Finally, we have spearheaded the development of a global Action Agenda to improve women’s and girl’s nutrition and, through that effort, advance gender equity. The agenda is a call to decision-makers at the global, regional and national levels to unite and take rapid action on women’s and girls’ nutrition.
