On June 25, WASHplus and USAID hosted a webinar on “WASH, Nutrition, and Early Childhood Development: New Evidence and Findings from the Field.
The webinar was moderated by Dr. Helen Petach, an Environmental Health Technical Advisor at the USAID Bureau for Global Health’s Office of Health Infectious Diseases and Nutrition.
Dr. Petach started the webinar off with an overview of the importance of WASH and nutrition for early childhood development. The USAID Water and Development Strategy emphasizes links among WASH, nutrition, and food security. The newly released USAID Multisectoral Nutrition Strategy calls on USAID to increase access to high quality nutrition-sensitive services, including access to WASH.
Dr. Petach also introduced the WASH, Nutrition, and Food Security Community of Practice, hosted by USAID. She encouraged attendees to join the Community. Members of this Community can participate in discussion around integrated programming; access articles, announcements, recent studies, datasets, recent research and program results.
Jenny Orgle, Program Director for the Nutrition at the Center Program at CARE USA, talked about “Addressing Environmental Enteropathy in CARE’s Nutrition at the Center Program.”
Maureen Black, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Pediatrics, University of Maryland School of Medicine, discussed “New Evidence Linking Nutrition and Early Child Development” and its connection to WASH.
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