Food for Thought: Save the Children’s influencing of the UK Department for International Development on nutrition – evidence and lessons

Tackling malnutrition is crucially important for achieving development and saving children’s lives, and Save the Children and others in the nutrition community identified that the UK Department for International Development (DFID) was falling short. Since 2006, Save the Children’s hunger reduction team had objectives around raising the profile and status of nutrition in DFID, and drawing out concrete commitments from them. The influencing effort, which ran from 2006, was highly successful in achieving its objectives, and by 2010 DFID had produced a full-blown nutrition strategy, with an approach closely reflecting that of Save the Children’s stance. 

The central aim of this study is to understand and analyse the influencing effort that Save the Children’s hunger reduction team employed with regard to the UK Department for International Development’s (DFID) work on nutrition, providing lessons and insights for Save the Children’s future influencing efforts.