Nutrition of women and adolescent girls in humanitarian contexts - Case study: Madagascar

This case study summarises policies and programmes to support women’s and adolescent girls’ nutrition as part of the recent humanitarian response in Madagascar. It identifies implementation gaps and challenges, and recommends actions to strengthen advocacy, policies and programmes.

It also provides detailed information about the ongoing multiple micronutrient supplementation (MMS) pilot project in Madagascar (Annex 1 and as a separate resource below). 

Given the absence of humanitarian contexts in research, policy and programming, the poor prioritisation of women’s and girls’ nutrition during a humanitarian response, and the limited availability of nutritional data for women and girls in humanitarian contexts, ENN have identified an urgent need to address this evidence gap.

The recommendations reflect the need for institutional anchoring and commitment to nutrition policies, guidelines and programmes for women and adolescent girls, stronger multi-sectoral linkages, enhanced capacity building within health systems, inclusion of adolescent girls and women within nutrition information, and monitoring and evaluation systems, and delivery of inclusive programmes which cater to vulnerable girls and women, while ensuring gender equality and female empowerment. 

This case study accompanies our technical brief Nutrition of women and adolescent girls in humanitarian contexts.