Integrating Nutrition Promotion and Rural Development

This project aims to bring health professionals and rural
development practitioners together with a shared aim of
integrating nutrition promotion and rural development. Even
though the health sector has developed policies to recognize
the role of non- health sector practitioners towards nutrition
promotion, the non- health sector has not received adequate
support and training as to how they can work together to
achieve these nutritional goals.

The main objective of the project is to investigate whether a
multisectoral rural development programme can be utilized to
deliver nutrition promotion intervention within rural Sri Lanka
and whether this is effective in improving nutrition outcomes.
It includes identifying the pathways to promote nutrition with
multiple stakeholders. It aims to explore the pathways in which
development programmes have a direct impact on nutrition
and health and to quantify their relative contributions on
outcomes related to nutrition and food security.

In addition, this project aims to provide evidence on the best
ways to operationalize multisectoral approaches and innovative
multisectoral delivery strategies. Generating this new evidence
could attract more local and national-level policy makers to
consider health impacts when they make decisions. The output
of this study will solidify the call for intersectoral collaborations
and whole of government approaches to improve nutrition and
health, particularly in developing countries.

The INPARD project is implemented in the Moneragala and
Ampara districts of Sri Lanka. The population in these areas is
ethnically, religiously, socio-economically and culturally diverse.
While this diversity brings unique challenges for programme
implementation, it also provides an opportunity to build new
levels of evidence to inform future policies and programs.