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Contribution of the Alive & Thrive–UNICEF advocacy efforts to improve infant and young child feeding policies in Southeast Asia

Evaluating the impact of advocacy for policy change presents many challenges. Recent advances in the field of evaluation, such as contribution analysis (CA), offer guidance on how to make credible claims regarding such impact. The purposes of this article are (a) to detail the application of CA to a...

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Autores principales: Michaud‐Létourneau, Isabelle, Gayard, Marion, Pelletier, David Louis
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6519196/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30793546
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/mcn.12683
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author Michaud‐Létourneau, Isabelle
Gayard, Marion
Pelletier, David Louis
author_facet Michaud‐Létourneau, Isabelle
Gayard, Marion
Pelletier, David Louis
author_sort Michaud‐Létourneau, Isabelle
collection PubMed
description Evaluating the impact of advocacy for policy change presents many challenges. Recent advances in the field of evaluation, such as contribution analysis (CA), offer guidance on how to make credible claims regarding such impact. The purposes of this article are (a) to detail the application of CA to assess the contribution of an advocacy initiative to improve infant and young child feeding policies and (b) to present the emergent theory of change and contribution story of how progress was achieved. An evaluation applying developmental evaluation and CA was conducted on the Alive & Thrive (A&T)–UNICEF initiative in seven Southeast Asian countries to document the extent to which policy objectives were achieved and identify key drivers of policy change. A contribution story was developed based on these experiences. The advocacy approach, which involved a four‐part process, contributed directly to (a) set the agenda of various actors and (b) create a strategic group; and indirectly to (a) set and maintain the issue on the agenda at all stages of the policy cycle, (b) support the government to carry out a set of critical tasks, and (c) extend commitment. All of this helped to achieve progress towards policy change. External influences were at play. The flexibility of A&T allowed key actors to utilize the positive external influences and address some of the negative ones through developing responsive strategies mitigating their effects. The emerging contribution story supports that A&T–UNICEF initiative contributed to the progress achieved in the participating countries.
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spelling pubmed-65191962019-08-29 Contribution of the Alive & Thrive–UNICEF advocacy efforts to improve infant and young child feeding policies in Southeast Asia Michaud‐Létourneau, Isabelle Gayard, Marion Pelletier, David Louis Matern Child Nutr Supplement Articles Evaluating the impact of advocacy for policy change presents many challenges. Recent advances in the field of evaluation, such as contribution analysis (CA), offer guidance on how to make credible claims regarding such impact. The purposes of this article are (a) to detail the application of CA to assess the contribution of an advocacy initiative to improve infant and young child feeding policies and (b) to present the emergent theory of change and contribution story of how progress was achieved. An evaluation applying developmental evaluation and CA was conducted on the Alive & Thrive (A&T)–UNICEF initiative in seven Southeast Asian countries to document the extent to which policy objectives were achieved and identify key drivers of policy change. A contribution story was developed based on these experiences. The advocacy approach, which involved a four‐part process, contributed directly to (a) set the agenda of various actors and (b) create a strategic group; and indirectly to (a) set and maintain the issue on the agenda at all stages of the policy cycle, (b) support the government to carry out a set of critical tasks, and (c) extend commitment. All of this helped to achieve progress towards policy change. External influences were at play. The flexibility of A&T allowed key actors to utilize the positive external influences and address some of the negative ones through developing responsive strategies mitigating their effects. The emerging contribution story supports that A&T–UNICEF initiative contributed to the progress achieved in the participating countries. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2019-02-22 /pmc/articles/PMC6519196/ /pubmed/30793546 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/mcn.12683 Text en © 2019 The Authors. Maternal and Child Nutrition Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Supplement Articles
Michaud‐Létourneau, Isabelle
Gayard, Marion
Pelletier, David Louis
Contribution of the Alive & Thrive–UNICEF advocacy efforts to improve infant and young child feeding policies in Southeast Asia
title Contribution of the Alive & Thrive–UNICEF advocacy efforts to improve infant and young child feeding policies in Southeast Asia
title_full Contribution of the Alive & Thrive–UNICEF advocacy efforts to improve infant and young child feeding policies in Southeast Asia
title_fullStr Contribution of the Alive & Thrive–UNICEF advocacy efforts to improve infant and young child feeding policies in Southeast Asia
title_full_unstemmed Contribution of the Alive & Thrive–UNICEF advocacy efforts to improve infant and young child feeding policies in Southeast Asia
title_short Contribution of the Alive & Thrive–UNICEF advocacy efforts to improve infant and young child feeding policies in Southeast Asia
title_sort contribution of the alive & thrive–unicef advocacy efforts to improve infant and young child feeding policies in southeast asia
topic Supplement Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6519196/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30793546
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/mcn.12683
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