Description

Abstract: The Enhancing Child Nutrition through Animal Source Food Management (ENAM) project was developed to address the barriers to the availability, accessibility, and utilization of animal source foods (ASF) in the diets of young children in rural Ghana. The project combined microcredit loans for mothers of children between two and five years of age with nutrition education and training in business development to enhance both economic status and knowledge about the nutritional needs of their children. A final stakeholders’ meeting was held August 13-14, 2008 in Accra, Ghana with the following objectives: present project results; give voice to community participants and rural bank staff; launch nutrition and entrepreneurial education materials that were developed for rural communities; advocate for the promotion young child nutrition; and plan activities related to scaling up and sustainability of project activities. The final stakeholder activity in the workshop was to address the question of how the ENAM project’s approach could be extended to a wider number of people. The need for short courses for community-based staff was reinforced. A final, important recommendation was to constitute a national-level committee to provide the impetus for scale up of the project through policy directives for adoption of the project’s methodology and interventions by relevant development institutions including rural banks. This would also enhance sustainability.