Abt to Manage Feed the Future Bangladesh Nutrition Activity for Additional Five Years

November 22, 2023

ROCKVILLE, MD – Abt Global has implemented the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) five-year, $23 million Feed the Future Bangladesh Nutrition Activity since 2018. The program improves dietary practices; water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH); and the social and economic status of women and adolescents in nine Feed the Future Zone of Influence (ZoI) and Zone of Resilience (ZoR) districts. Recently, USAID awarded an additional $35 million to Abt Global to advance evidence-based approaches to nutrition challenges, ensure the inclusion of climate-smart technology in those solutions, and expand support to all Feed the Future ZoI and ZoR districts in Bangladesh over the next five years.

Through our unique integrated market systems development and social and behavior change approaches, Abt has gained valuable insights into the incentives that are most effective to bring about positive change, improving the nutritional status of more than 660,000 people to date. The Activity considers explicit and implicit consumer, public sector, and private sector motivations and employs facilitative, market-driven, and consumer-oriented tactics to drive sustainable results in three areas:

1) Increasing the consumption of nutritious, diverse, safe, and balanced diets by households

2) Improving the social and economic empowerment of women and social empowerment of adolescents

3) Adopting improved WASH practices.

We integrate a strong focus on gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) across all three result areas. Improvements in all three are necessary to positively affect nutritional outcomes.

USAID and Abt Global co-designed the extended implementation period to consider lessons learned from the past five years. New focus areas will include:

Increased focus on collaboration with the public and private sectors to ensure sustainable food and WASH markets
Integration of design thinking research methodologies and approaches to pilot new initiatives and test innovations
Increased emphasis on climate-smart technologies, food security, and climate-resilient approaches
Increased scale through geographic expansion based on analyses of WASH and food system gaps in Bangladesh

Feed the Future Bangladesh Nutrition Activity partners include BIID Foundation, Dhaka Ahsania Mission, Friends in Village Development Bangladesh, International Development Enterprises, Jagorani Chakra Foundation, and Quicksand. The Activity is made possible by USAID: From the American people, as part of Feed the Future, the U.S. Government’s global hunger and food security initiative.

Visit the project page here.

About Abt Global
Abt Global is a global consulting and research firm that combines data and bold thinking to improve the quality of people's lives. We partner with clients and communities to advance equity and innovation—from creating scalable digital solutions and combatting infectious disease, to mitigating climate change and evaluating programs for measurable social impact. https://www.abtglobal.com

Contact:
Stan Crock
stan_crock@abtassoc.com
(301) 347-5402