WASH’ Nutrition

3 Using the private sector to expand supply of agriculture and WASH products: On the supply side, NOURISH works
with small and medium enterprises to increase the market for agriculture and sanitation products. Expanding the supply
to meet the demand ensures that households and communities have access to agriculture and WASH products, which
contributes to improved household and community diet diversity and sanitation practices.
4 Enhancing the capacity of government and civil society in integrated nutrition: NOURISH strengthens the capacity
of partners in nutrition, agriculture, sanitation and hygiene activities through organizational development, mentoring,
and advocacy. The project helps local leaders to encourage nutrition activities in the community, reinforcing social and
behaviour change messaging and community structures for nutrition.
Key messages on WASH and nutrition in the communities:
KEY
MESSAGES
Achieving nutritional impact on children and pregnant women implies implementing,
comprehensive and holistic WASH programmes in the communities and addressing many
barriers related to the access and uptake of safe water, sanitation and hygiene services and
behaviours.
There are numerous opportunities for delivering key WASH and nutrition activities together,
in an integrated manner, when targeting the same communities. This can help save resources,
identify areas of overlap (e.g. discussing food hygiene practices when promoting healthy and
nutritious foods) and reinforce them through a joint communication channels.
This includes integrating WASH, nutrition and health messaging, incorporating different WASH
community engagement strategies (CLTS, PHAST, SM) into nutrition programming, vector disease
prevention and control in the communities for better nutrition, etc.
It has been demonstrated that improving agricultural production alone will not translate into
improvements in nutrition. Good WASH practices are integral to good agricultural practices
from planting through to post-harvest and promoting them in food and agricultural systems can
contribute to better health and improved nutritional status.
Reducing animal waste contamination in the community is essential for protecting infants
and young children from ingesting soil, feces, and other pathogens at a critical growth and
developmental stage.
Private sector vendors of hygiene items, household water treatment products, food, religious
leaders, farmer associations, nurses, community health workers, pharmacists, birth attendants,
teachers, early child development workers, etc. are key stakeholders to target and to involve in
community-based WASH and nutrition interventions.
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WASH’Nutrition
A practical guidebook