The World Bank highlighted three award-winning anti-poverty projects at a global event broadcasted at its headquarters in Washington, D.C. on Feb. 19. The winning projects incorporate agriculture, food security and nutrition in a single development program.

The contest, known as Harvest Nutrition, was launched jointly by the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, or GAIN, the SecureNutrition Knowledge Platform—which is funded by the World Bank Group—and Save the Children UK.

In hosting the contest, the three organizations aimed to showcase projects that “showed the linkages between agriculture, nutrition, and food security,” and that addressed “the principal challenges of integrating a nutrition sensitive approach to agriculture and food security programs.” The awards were granted in three main categories: most scalable approach, most innovative approach and most impact on nutrition.

The three winning projects were awarded $5,000 each in grant funding and are listed as follows:

1. Impact on Nutrition (Zambia): Realigning Agriculture to Improve Nutrition (RAIN)

“Aiming to increase year-round availability of and access to high-quality foods at the household level, data from RAIN show encouraging results, with increased production of various micronutrient-rich crops, such as leafy green vegetables, and increased dietary diversity during both the hunger and post-harvest seasons. Rigorous data collection and analysis, conducted by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), is integrated into the program design. Implemented by Concern Worldwide.” – World Bank

2. Innovation (Kenya): Shamba Shape Up

“A ‘make-over’ style reality television show targeting rural smallholder farmers, Shamba Shape Up is a clear standout as an innovative platform for presenting and disseminating nutrition messages. Shamba Shape Up, which is implemented by The Mediae Company, reaches more than 10 million farmers in East Africa with tools and information to improve productivity and income on their farms.” – World Bank

3. Scalability (West, Central, and East Africa Regions): N2Africa

“This large-scale multi-country ‘research to development’ project is promoting new technologies for improving productivity of legumes such as groundnut, cowpea and common bean—commonly regarded as women’s crops. N2Africa, which is implemented by Wageningen University, works with a wide variety of stakeholders across the value chain from seed to fork, and from field to market. A strong evaluation system provides the basis for ongoing feedback and learning.” – World Bank

– Katrina Beedy

Sources: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,  World Bank
Photo: Flickr