Sustainable nutrition takes center stage in SAL’s latest urban health initiative

10 Jun 2024 --- The Swiss-based foundation Sight and Life (SAL) highlights the efforts and successes of the ongoing Nutrition in City Ecosystems (NICE) project being implemented across cities in Bangladesh, Kenya and Rwanda. The initiative is sponsored by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.

“Our strategy is built on the model of helping people help themselves and cultivating an entrepreneurial approach to solving food and nutrition problems,” states Christoph Goppelsroeder, SAL chair of the board. “I am proud to also share that we have expanded our thought leadership in adolescent health, climate-smart nutrition, agroecology and diverse proteins.”

The NICE project aims to improve nutrition and reduce poverty by improving the supply and demand for nutritious food grown through agroecological practices. It is being implemented by the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, ETH Zürich World Food System Center and Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture in six non-capital cities of the three selected countries.

These include Dinajpur (population of 3.3 million) and Rangpur (400 thousand) in Bangladesh, Bungoma (1.6 million) and Busia (72 thousand) in Kenya, and Rusizi (close to half a million residents) and Rubavu (over half a million) in Rwanda.

Urban nutrition
The SAL foundation is primarily focused on maternal and child health and nutrition. The climate-smart urban nutrition endeavor NICE is highlighted in the newly published 2023 annual SAL report “Delivering science-based solutions to close the nutrition gap.”

According to the UN, 68% of the world’s population will be living in cities by 2025 (Pictured: Nairobi, Kenya skyline).The document asserts: “Our mission is to close the micronutrient, lipid and protein gap in

low- and middle-income countries (LMIC), especially in women of reproductive age, adolescents and children.”

Spotlighting the importance of urban solutions, the authors point out that according to UN data, 68% of the world’s population will be living in cities by 2025. Much of this urban population growth is taking place in LMIC, granting the non-capital cities of such nations “untapped potential” to transform urban food systems to ensure the production and consumption of nutritious and sustainable food.

SAL’s efforts to shape demand and supply for such products involve the use of consumer insights, social marketing and behavior change communication. These include marketing campaigns, training and cooking classes. 

On-the-ground implementation 
According to the foundation, to improve value chains, food systems require integration with climate work. Key achievements of NICE include turning research into demand-generating activities, such as the Social and Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC) campaigns.

SBCC’s consumer behavior aspect focuses on the more nutritious and sustainable options available when purchasing, preparing and consuming food. Work with farmers focuses on encouraging the adoption of agroecological farming methods that can improve production, the environment and the health of farming communities.

Agroecology is the practice of sustainable farming that works alongside nature and applies ecological principles to agriculture. 

In 2023, the social marketing campaigns reached more than 43 thousand farmers and consumers — 9,475 in Rwanda, 13,750 in Kenya and 21,845 in Bangladesh.

Each participating city established and began operating food systems platforms aiming to foster participation. A cross-section of city stakeholders took part in planning activities with a focus on food systems governance to ensure that NICE remains focused on vulnerable urban dwellers. Local stakeholders also enabled the linking production and demand activities along value chains. 

Dinajpur city selected nine value chains to develop, based foods that can be sourced sustainably, including the brinjal eggplant (Pictured: Bengali dish with brinjal).Partnerships and collaboration are outlined as important to the implementation of the projects, with the UN FAO being involved in all three countries.  

The NICE nutrition solutions being implemented in Rwanda have notable climate components, aiming to train farmers in climate adaptive agroecological principles.

Vital nutrition 
Dinajpur, Bangladesh, the most populated participating city, selected nine value chains to develop as part of the project, based on vital nutritious foods that can be sourced sustainably: brinjal (a type of eggplant), bitter gourd (bitter melon), sweet gourd (calabash), cucumber, tomator, drumstick plant, zinc-enriched rice, mango and eggs. 

The next step was the establishment of 31 NICE farmer’s hubs involving 6,315 farmers in the Dinajpur area. Of these, 29 hubs provided agroecology training and 26 gave demonstration plots on agroecological practices in brinjal production. 

Project partners in Dinajpur and Rangpur facilitate mobile vegetable vans for women and youngsters to sell vegetables around the city as well as five covered vans that allow for the supply of vegetables, healthy snack food carts and city food markets from the local farmers’ hubs. The 17 healthy snack carts focus on servicing schools, colleges and marketplaces.

The farmers working in the Dinajpur area were invited to participate in an adapted version of FAO’s survey SHARP (Self-evaluation and Holistic Assessment of Climate Resilience of Farmers and Pastoralists) tool. The input collected from 150 farmers is being used in the design of additional NICE-specific agroecology interventions. 

By Milana Nikolova