The Feinstein International Center (FIC) at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy received its largest funding award yet in the form of a $7.3 million research grant aimed at fighting child malnutrition in Ethiopia, according to a Feb. 9 press release.
This award is expected to be disbursed over five years and is part of a larger grant of more than $50 million given by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to Save the Children, a non-governmental organization dedicated to supporting children in developing nations, according to FIC Director Peter Walker.
Walker noted that the FIC's role in this larger plan of action is to focus on research.
"Our job is to be the research component of the project, looking at what really are the critical things where research and new knowledge will make a difference or where new policies and programs may need to be developed," he said. "We've also been asked to help with the monitoring and the evaluation of existing and future programs that are being implemented."
Meanwhile, Save the Children and other partners involved with the plan will direct their energy toward actually implementing nutrition programs in Ethiopia.
"What Save the Children will do with the money is improve the specific dimensions delivered that might have an impact on mothers' and children's nutrition, as well as improve the monitoring and evaluation of those programs so they can better measure what the impact of these nutritional efforts are," FIC Senior Researcher Kate Sadler, who will lead the Tufts research design team, said.
Along with Save the Children, Sadler and her team will partner with faculty members from two Ethiopian schools — Hawassa University and Jimma University — as well as The Ethiopian Health and Nutrition Research Institute.
Sadler believes that Ethiopia is in need of significant assistance to fight hunger and that the FIC is well prepared to provide this assistance since it is part of a nutrition school.
"In Ethiopia, there has been a lot of focus for many years on emergency humanitarian intervention by focusing on food aid to tackle problems of malnutrition," Sadler said. "What both the government and many long-term donors to Ethiopia want to see happen now is a shift to trying to address some of the longer-term problems of property, food insecurity, health and all the other underlying causes of malnutrition."
Walker highlighted that the FIC has been working in Ethiopia for several decades and has a full-time office there, factors he believes contributed to the receipt of this grant.
"In some ways this is an extension of our past programs," he said. "We've done smaller programs, and what happens is they point you in the direction of where research is needed and they also establish your credibility … which makes it slightly easier for you to apply for and ask to come in with these larger grants."
Sadler anticipates traveling in March to Ethiopia with a group of Tufts faculty members to meet with other partners. Data collection may not start until the end of the year.
"The main objective of the first meeting is to finalize and prioritize the research agenda and the actual questions that we'll be focusing on and running the research around," she said.
Sadler noted that women and children in Ethiopia are most affected by malnutrition, and that malnutrition's consequences — such as higher mortality risk, as well as inhibited development, IQ and productivity — make it a critical issue to address.
Walker added that in addition to advancing the fight against child hunger in Ethiopia, the grant allows the FIC to fund some master's degree and Ph.D. students in Ethiopian universities and to offer a Ph.D. position at Tufts.
"We're taking advantage of this grant to help build the next generations of really good nutritionists in the country," he said.
