Impact of Adolescent Nutrition Support on Development Outcomes

Closed

Stunting and other forms of malnutrition persist in Indonesia and can have significant negative impacts on the cognitive and non-cognitive development outcomes of children and adolescents. The proposed knowledge and support technical assistance (TA) will support the Government of Indonesia's development of nutrition-enhancing programs and policies targeting adolescents, by (i) assessing the current nutritional status of adolescents to identify and prioritize nutritional challenges; (ii) addressing the burden of malnutrition from a life cycle perspective by implementing preconception nutrition care, school-based nutrition interventions, and nutrition support to disadvantaged adolescents; and (iii) deriving rigorous, policy-relevant evidence on the development impacts of such interventions in terms of health and education outcomes through randomized controlled trials.The TA is aligned with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) country partnership strategy for Indonesia, 2016-2019 and the government's National Long-term Development Plan (2005-2025), which emphasize enhanced human resource development through better health and smarter education and skills development. High-quality evidence on the impact of nutrition intervention on development produced by the TA will assist evidence-based policy making in the health and education sectors.