On April 13, 2021, NITI Aayog, in partnership with Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Centre for Social and Behaviour Change, Ashoka University, launched a national digital repository on health and nutrition, namely, PoshanGyan, conceptualised under the guidance of Dr Rakesh Sarwal as a resource, enabling search of communication materials on 14 thematic areas of health and nutrition across diverse languages, media types, target audiences, and sources. It is a repository of effective communication materials created by government agencies and other development organisations to tackle the challenges of knowledge awareness and behaviour change in the sector of nutrition.
The portal will be accessible for everybody to use from frontline health workers to community leaders, teachers or anyone else, seeking to improve nutritional outcomes. It contains materials from a range of topics, such as antenatal care, complementary feeding, adolescent health, diet diversity, anemia prevention, etc., and is based on a variety of media types like interpersonal communication, mass media, outdoor advertising, and so on. The repository is curated and maintained by NITI Aayog along with other development partners.
Objectives
Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog, Dr Rajiv Kumar says that though India is a food-surplus nation, high malnutrition persists which points towards a clear need for behavioural change, which can be brought about only through changing behaviours on the ground. Therefore, Poshan Gyan is an extremely important initiative in this direction, and can help make nutrition a Jan Andolan, (mass movement) as envisioned by PM Modi.
According to Chief Executive Officer, NITI Aayog, Amitabh Kant, the primacy of the challenge of nutrition in India should be solved by targeting those especially vulnerable, such as pregnant women, lactating mothers, and children below the age of 6 years, through the application of behavioural insights. Similarly, the portal will help influence behaviours on breastfeeding, immunisation, etc.
Secretary, MoWCD, Ram Mohan Mishra is of the view that the crowdsourcing feature of the portal can be used to disseminate nationwide solutions that have proved successful in local contexts, such as the use of a traditional grape-based concoction that was recently found to be efficacious in combating anaemia in Tamil Nadu.
Salient Features of the Portal
Some key highlights of the portal are as follows:
- The portal introduces a unique crowdsourcing feature so that anyone can submit communication material to be included on the website, followed by a review by a designated committee. Users and community members can input materials to improve the scale and quality of this resource through upload and feedback features on the website.
- It highlights the Theme of the Month (guidelines to promote key topics in accordance with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) and Ministry of Women and Child Development (MoWCD)) and the Most Downloaded Media (information about the materials that are most preferred by audiences).
- It also provides links to other important sites and resources like the webpages of MoHFW, MoWCD, NITI Aayog, AnemiaMukt Bharat, Eat Right India, and so on.
- It contains a ‘search’ toolbar on the homepage that will help visitors find the most relevant materials in a simple and easy manner.
Anaemia Mukt Bharat was launched by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) in November 2019 with special focus on the health and nutrition needs of children, adolescents, women of reproductive age group and pregnant mothers, and lactating mothers. This will be achieved through six interventions, implementation of which will be facilitated by six robust institutional mechanisms through a training tool kit, developed to be used to orient and train different stakeholders at various levels. The tool kit contains five Units: 1. Introduction to Anaemia, 2. Test and Treat, 3. Talk Anaemia, 4. IFA (Iron and Folic Acid) Supply Chain Management, and 5. AMB Dashboard.
The Eat Right Movement was launched by Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) on July 10, 2018, to improve public health in India and combat negative nutritional trends to fight lifestyle diseases. The food industry, public health professionals, civil society and consumer organisations, influencers, and celebrities pledged to take concrete steps to amplify ‘The Eat Right Movement’ in the country by coming together on the common platform.
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