USAID’s Global Health Mini-University

Washington, DC, October 8, 2010, 8:00 am to 4:30pm

Attendees of USAID’s annual Mini-University spent a day with colleagues and peers learning evidence-based best practices and state-of-the-art information from a variety of technical themes across the global health field.

The IYCN Project lead two sessions:

Engaging Men at Home and in the Workplace

IYCN co-hosted this session together with the Extending Service Delivery (ESD) Project. Participants explored approaches for engaging men in public health programs. IYCN’s Dr. Altrena Mukuria presented experiences and lessons from a pilot program to engage men in supporting improved maternal nutrition and infant and young child feeding practices in Kenya. ESD’s David Wofford presented the implementation and results of the Healthy Images of Manhood approach, which was piloted at Unilever Tea Tanzania to change negative gender norms and encourage men—and their partners and families—to adopt healthier behaviors, including use of family planning.

The session included group activities to explore gender norms and traditional roles for men and women and how they impact health behaviors. Facilitators lead discussions on what it means to engage men in public health programs and how to effectively incorporate male involvement activities into program design.

Uniting Agriculture and Nutrition for Healthier Mothers and Children

In this session, IYCN Technical Director Dr. Tom Schaetzel used a review of nutritional impacts of agriculture developments to lead participants in a discussion on the intersection between agriculture and nutrition. He also shared guidelines for developing nutrition objectives for agriculture projects, and for assessing activities that may have a negative impact on nutrition. Participants discussed how agricultural interventions can focus on activities that improve nutrition and food security for the most nutritionally vulnerable groups, and explored sections of the impact assessment tool during a group exercise.

Learn more about the Global Health Mini-University.