Nutrition

Adequate intake of essential micronutrients is fundamental to healthy growth, brain development and immunity. Underpinning improved survival and long-term health outcomes as well as learning and economic productivity.

Why we want to help

Micronutrient deficiencies are widespread—affecting over half of young children and two-thirds of women of reproductive age globally—though accurate measurement remains challenging. The issue is particularly prevalent in low- and middle-income countries, where limited diets, poor dietary diversity and illness reduce nutrient intake and absorption. Women and young children are especially vulnerable due to higher nutritional needs during pregnancy and periods of rapid growth and development.

Proven interventions exist to prevent and treat undernutrition, and micronutrient interventions are widely recognised as among the most cost-effective development investments. However, achieving their full impact depends on reaching high levels of coverage, and in many cases these interventions have yet to demonstrate that they can be delivered effectively at scale.

What we will fund

Interventions to increase the coverage of proven cost-effective fortification, biofortification and supplementation approaches that prevent micronutrient deficiencies in at-risk populations. There are three areas we are looking to provide support to, and we will consider applications that address one or more of these.

Scaling Strategies for Proven Approaches. Applications should focus on interventions that have a proven ability to address micronutrient deficiencies but that are not yet having an optimum impact due to insufficient scale and/or uptake. Proposed work should look to incorporate robust testing to prove that the approach can achieve high levels of sustained coverage at a meaningful scale and to demonstrate its potential to be scaled up further to reach more people and/or new geographic areas. Activities could look to increase the reach of interventions via improved access, higher uptake, or both.

Improved Access – Applications should look to provide proof of concept for a distribution strategy for fortified or biofortified foods and/or supplements with high scaling potential. For example:

Incorporating fortified foods or supplements into existing school meal or social security programmes.
Novel delivery platforms to better reach vulnerable populations.
Market-based approaches providing nutrition products or services.
Strengthening community-based distribution networks to ensure a reliable supply.

Higher Uptake – Applications should look to provide proof of concept for strategies that break down key barriers to the consumption of fortified foods and adherence to supplementation programmes. This could include:

Innovative behaviour-change interventions.
Digital communication tools or platforms.
Improving the affordability and/or desirability of fortified products and supplements.
Better knowledge and management of side effects to improve adherence.

Improving Measurement and Evaluation of Interventions. Applications should look to increase knowledge about which interventions most effectively address micronutrient deficiencies across different contexts. Proposed work should involve developing and/or trialling methods and/or tools in order to:

Better assess the effectiveness of an intervention on the micronutrient status of a specified population by identifying reliable indicators that can be used to measure impact on micronutrient status.
Conduct more accurate and comprehensive coverage assessments of fortification and supplementation programmes.
Conduct cost-effectiveness assessments of comparable approaches to address micronutrient deficiencies in a specific context.

Findings should have clear practical relevance for informing policy and programmatic actions and improving nutrition outcomes.

Innovative Finance for Nutrition. There is a huge gap between the financial resources available for improved nutrition from public and donor sources and the levels of financing needed to meet global nutrition-specific goals. Other sectors, such as Education, Health, and Climate Change, have been successful in developing significant sources of innovative financing, but the Nutrition sector has only just started to exploit the potential resources available through these avenues.

TWF is interested to explore opportunities for tapping into non-traditional sources of financing and leveraging the private sector to increase finance flows into nutrition programmes, focussing in particular on the early stages of designing and small-scale piloting of innovative funding mechanisms for interventions addressing micronutrient deficiencies.

Follow these links for examples of Nutrition projects supported under Main Grant and Small Grant funding strategy.

What we will not support

We are not able to offer funding for

Standalone nutrition-sensitive interventions, such as: Agriculture and food security and Maternal health.
Management of acute malnutrition
Standalone breastfeeding promotion

We will prioritise applications:

Seeking to work with groups at high-risk of micronutrient deficiencies, in contexts with high levels of micronutrient deficiencies and where it is challenging to meet required levels of micronutrient consumption through diet alone. Also:

From agile organisations with demonstrated ability to deliver adaptive programming and with specialist skill sets and experience.
Seeking to work with hard-to-reach groups with a consideration for leaving no-one behind.
Providing evidence of positive impact from previous work
Acknowledging and building on previous efforts;
Addressing a demonstrated local need and that are carefully tailored to the local context;
Aligning with in-country government policy and priorities and incorporating the strengthening of local systems;
Including a strong monitoring and evaluation component;
Considering how impacts will be sustained and scaled in the longer-term

Applying for Funding

We receive many more funding applications than we are able to support. We are therefore only able to consider support for applications that meet all four of these requirements:

Clearly fit with the descriptions of what we will, and what we will not support;
Clearly fit with our Geographical Priorities;
Use the flow chart below and meet the eligibility criteria for a Small or Main Grant;
Follow the relevant Application Guidelines including the FAQ section.

Eligibility for a Main Grant	Eligibility for a Small Grant
UK and overseas organisations with a UK-based reference	UK-based organisations only
Requesting over £25,000 in the field of Nutrition	Requesting under £10,000 in the field of Nutrition
Have an annual income of at least £300,000	Have an income of below £300,000
Deliver development programmes at a district, regional or national scale	Deliver work at a local scale – for example supporting just one or a small number of communities, schools or groups
Have experience in delivering multi-year programmes guided by multi-year strategic plans	Tend to plan and deliver work over a one to two year time frame
Can demonstrate a strong track record of delivering long-term impact	Can demonstrate successful project delivery and the ability to monitor project outputs and outcomes
Have waited at least 24 months since last unsuccessful application	Have waited at least 24 months since last unsuccessful application

World Development Main Grant Nutrition Application Guidelines	World Development Small Grant Nutrition Application Guidelines