Bangladesh Initiative to Enhance Nutrition Security and Governance (BIeNGS) Final Evaluation Report

The BIeNGS programme was ultimately designed to lead to improved nutrition status of children and mothers in the two Bangladeshi districts of Jamalpur and Sherpur. This report summarises the endline findings from the evaluation of the BIeNGS programme. This comprised of a mixed methods design combining quantitative surveys with project beneficiary households, Community Clinic and CNP staff together with a qualitative and process component to gather community and implementer perspectives and process monitoring data. Quantitative findings provide a ‘before-after’ comparison of project logframe indicators amongst core target groups (i.e. women and children) in line with the project’s theory of change. Qualitative findings provide complementary, in-depth perspectives on the effectiveness and sustainability of BIeNGS activities from the perspective of beneficiaries engaged in various project components (including Producer Groups, MenCare Groups, CG, CVA and Adolescent Clubs), as well as implementing partners’ experiences.

Comparing baseline and endline results, we see many positive changes in these indicators, particularly in terms of an improvement in overall food security and the frequency of consumption of different food groups in the past seven days, children’s dietary diversity, particularly amongst girls, children’s diet frequency and overall adequacy; consumption of iron-rich and zinc-rich foods, mothers dietary diversity and consumption of healthy and nutritious foods (including green leafy vegetables and eggs); and consumption of Iron and Folic Acid (IFA) during pregnancy. Accompanying these nutritional improvements, we also see positive improvements in nutrition knowledge from baseline to endline, nutrition knowledge for adolescent girls, the proportion of children who are fully immunized and 100% coverage of treatment of child diarrhoea with oral rehydration salts. We also see that many indicators improved most amongst the poorest households compared to the rest of the population, including in stunting, MAD and exclusive breastfeeding.

Several aspects of the programme were targeted at women and gender relations, particularly producer groups, but also the Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF) support delivered by both community health clinics (the target of the programme’s capacity strengthening) and the programme’s own dedicated community nutrition promotors. Such activities also included the MenCare component, which was designed to tackle men’s role in family care structures and to address wider patriarchal structures. Here we see some similarly impressive results: improvements in women’s participation in agricultural activities; women’s feeling that they have inputs in health and nutrition matters and women’s feelings that they have control over their income. Some of these increases are particularly strong, where, for example, in Jamalpur, women’s involvement in grain farming went from 32% to 60%, high value crop farming from 6% to 25%.