Although the NaviNut (Enhancing women’s agency in navigating changing food environments to improve child nutrition in African drylands) project is still relatively young, with the fieldwork having started only in late 2020, several partners presented posters or gave oral presentations at the international Tropentag conference on 15–17 September 2021.
The Tropentag is an interdisciplinary, science-based and development-oriented conference on research in tropical and subtropical agriculture and rural development held annually in Germany, Austria, Belgium or Czechia. This year’s Tropentag, with the theme “Towards shifting paradigms in agriculture for a healthy and sustainable future”, in hybrid format, was organised by the Institute of Agricultural Sciences in the Tropics (Hans-Ruthenberg-Institute) at the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart, Germany.
The NaviNut project is coordinated by DITSL (German Institute for Tropical & Subtropical Agriculture) and involves the Center for Research and Development in Drylands (CRDD), member of Prolinnova–Kenya; University of Parakou, host organisation of Prolinnova–Benin; University of Abomey-Calavi, Benin; Tropical Institute of Community Health & Development (TICH) and Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture & Technology (JKUAT) in Kenya; South Westphalia University of Applied Sciences (SWUAS), Germany; and Prolinnova International through the Focal Point in Agrecol Association, Germany. It is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Food & Agriculture (BMEL).
The contributions of NaviNut partners to the Tropentag 2021 were:
- Poster by Chérif Issifou et al on results of a participatory analysis of northern Benin mothers’ sources of nutrition knowledge (abstract / poster)
- Poster and presentation by Ina Cramer (SWUAS) et al about factors explaining why mothers buy packaged food in Benin and Kenya (paper: https://www.tropentag.de/2021/abstracts/full/313.pdf; poster: https://www.tropentag.de/2021/abstracts/posters/313.pdf)
- Presentation by Jimmy Paul et al about the importance of social capital in enhancing child feeding and nutrition in northern Benin (abstract: https://www.tropentag.de/abstract.php?code=UBncaetf)
- Poster by Adrien Dogo et al about the nutritional benefits of traditional food products for young children in northern Benin (poster: https://www.tropentag.de/2021/abstracts/posters/252.pdf)
- Presentation on the Participatory Action Research (PAR) approach in the project, by Brigitte Kaufmann, NaviNut project coordinator, et al (abstract: https://www.tropentag.de/abstract.php?code=Tr6mXXtg).
The presentation on the PAR approach, which includes Prolinnova’s Participatory Innovation Development (PID) approach, can be found here.
