The courses below have been created by Tufts University and modified for the Feed the Future Ethiopia Growth through Nutrition Activity. As a key component of the project’s learning agenda, this online training program is composed of short courses designed to provide instruction and capacity building around key themes related to enhancing nutrition knowledge and informing policy and programming for multisectoral nutrition approaches. The intended audience for these courses is those engaged in designing, implementing, funding and evaluating multisectoral programs and policies in Ethiopia at both a national and regional level.
The courses involve watching an online lecture, completing an assessment to test comprehension, and awards a certificate of completion. Course length varies from 1-2 hours. Additional courses will be added as they become available.
*PLEASE NOTE: Registration is currently on pause for Growth through Nutrition Online Training courses. Please check back soon for more information regarding future course options and registration.*
Course descriptions:
Course 1: Nutrition Sensitive Interventions: Agriculture, Food Security, Diet Diversity and Nutrition
Nutrition Sensitive Interventions have been widely implemented to address critical areas in agriculture, food security, diet diversity and nutrition. This short course focuses on their application to the agricultural sector, and explores the history and concepts underlying agriculture-nutrition linkages. The module also covers current nutrition sensitive initiatives with a particular focus on activities in Ethiopia.
Course 2: Strengthening Food Consumption Information Systems To Promote Healthy Diets
Diet is at the nexus of agricultural production, environmental sustainability, and nutrition and health status. And yet, in order to be able to successfully promote food-based policies that enable nutritious and sustainable diets, it is critical to have information on what people are eating and why. This module describes various policy applications of dietary data, as well as the key bottlenecks that have hindered its availability, access, and use in most low and middle-income countries.
Course 3: Nutrition and Food Systems
This course reviews the ability of a food systems approach to improve diet and enhance nutritional status. Entry points for maximizing nutrition and minimizing negative effects are reviewed, as well as conceptual frameworks for food systems. In addition, the typologies of different food systems are presented. Actions along the food value chain are analyzed with an attempt to identify changes that will improve income, alleviate poverty, and enhance diet and nutrition.
Course 4: Environmental Enteropathy (EED), Microbiome, Mycotoxins and Stunting
The course reviews the basic concepts of environmental enteropathy or environmental enteric dysfunction (EED), the microbiome, and how they relate to stunting. It highlights new research that aims to understand the potential role of EED and the microbiome in growth and development. The effect of water quality on development and growth is also examined.
Course 5: Agroecology and Other Sustainable Approaches to Agriculture
This course reviews agricultural production as it relates to the Sustainable Development Goals. Current practices are evaluated, as well as strategies to improve production through sustainable intensification, climate smart, and organic approaches. Agroecology is also discussed, a dynamic concept that harnesses natural processes and local knowledge to address food security and nutrition through science, practice, and a burgeoning social movement.
Course 6: Sustainable Agriculture and the Role of Livestock
Embedded within Sustainable Development Goal #2 is the importance of sustainable agriculture. There is probably no better issue to illustrate responsible production and responsible consumption than livelihoods related to livestock. This course focuses on the role of livestock in sustainable agriculture and whether there are trade-offs between agriculture and nutrition goals. Conflicting concerns, trends and challenges in global agricultural development are also addressed.
Course 7: Research Challenges at the Intersection of Agriculture, Diet and Health: Case Studies in Nepal and Uganda
This course highlights new and emerging evidence-based research from the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Nutrition at Tufts on findings relating to aflatoxins and child growth in Nepal and Uganda. This module focuses specifically on food safety, examining natural toxins that grow on food and how they potentially cause problems with health and nutrition outcomes.
Course 8: COVID-19 and Nutrition
This course explores the effects of COVID-19 on nutrition and the pandemic’s impact on global food security. As COVID-19 continues to spread, economic outcomes coupled with overburdened health care systems severely impact vulnerable groups in lower and middle-income countries, threatening some of the progress that has been made against malnutrition. Current and potential responses to these outcomes are highlighted, which include health and fiscal policies, social protection interventions, governance restrictions, and price shifts related to markets, as well as the need for local and broad institutional coordination and foreign aid.
Course 9: Food Safety
This course focuses on food safety, examining how food supplies are susceptible to many different types of contaminants and how they can adversely affect health and nutrition outcomes. The module highlights major foodborne pathogens, biological toxins, and both man-made and naturally occurring chemicals that are linked with disease and the mechanisms by which they cause illness in humans, as well as the consequences of infection.
Course 10: Good Governance and Nutrition Policy and Programs
This module reviews selected global approaches to addressing issues of good governance of food and nutrition security. Specific research on factors associated with governance in Ethiopia is presented. Lessons learned from the multi-year research is summarized and implications for future efforts in multi-sector governance are discussed.
Course 11: Program Monitoring and Evaluation: Basic Principles
This module provides an overview of the principles and practice of program monitoring and evaluation, with a focus on how to define and measure a program’s success using the appropriate indicators and research design. The course is designed for researchers, project staff, and development practitioners who need to plan, implement, monitor and evaluate development projects, with a particular emphasis on food security and nutrition-related programs in developing countries.
Updates on Nutrition Training Series
The purpose of this course series called Updates on Nutrition is to provide a timely synopsis of recent, important global publications in food security and nutrition, which can help inform policy, programming, and research. As new publications emerge, new course modules will be added. The courses do not have a testing component and are non-certificate modules.
Updates on Nutrition #1: 2018 Global Nutrition, State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, and EAT-Lancet Reports
This first module reviews the 2018 Global Nutrition Report, FAO’s 2018 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, and the EAT-Lancet Commission on Healthy Diets from Sustainable Food Systems. This is a non-certificate course.
Updates on Nutrition #2: 2019 Global Food Policy Report
This second installment in the "Updates on Nutrition" series reviews the 2019 Global Food Policy Report, a review of major developments in food policy around the world, highlighting the urgent need for rural revitalization to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This is a non-certificate course.
For any questions, please contact Jennifer Stickland at jennifer.stickland@tufts.edu
