This workshop report presents the findings from a workshop held by the Institute of
Development Studies (IDS) in partnership with the Scaling Up Nutrition Business Network in
Abuja, Nigeria, 14 October 2015. The workshop convened individuals from the private sector,
civil society, the donor community and government to discuss the opportunities, challenges
and potential impacts of using market-based solutions to improve nutrition.
The day began with an overview of IDS’ research on market and private sector interventions
for improving nutrition conducted in Tanzania, Nigeria and Ghana, which highlights key
constraints when using markets, and potential options for addressing these constraints.
Using a framework for understanding how market systems operate, and feeding the research
findings into this framework, participants conducted an analysis of four real case studies from
Nigeria. The key obstacles limiting the ability of market systems approaches to improve
nutritional outcomes in Nigeria were identified by the participants as:
1. lack of consumer awareness, including knowledge of products and benefits as well as
general awareness of human nutritional needs;
2. difficulty of creating demand for nutritious products, and distributing these products to
vulnerable communities;
3. lack of consumer trust of packaged food and nutrition claims on foods, owing to the
high prevalence of fake products and lack of enforcement of regulations.
Participants also came to the conclusion that these challenges were interlinked, and had to
be tackled using a whole-systems approach; this reinforced the key theme found by the
research that any specific project, product, programme or company’s ability to improve
nutrition must be considered within the entire market context in which it is operating.
The challenges that were identified through the mapping were brought forward to a second
workshop, held on 15 October 2015, focusing on how the Scaling Up Nutrition Business
Network (SUN-BN), Nigeria, might be able to address some of them and use this mapping to
inform its strategy as it prepares to launch in early 2016. IDS will continue to work with the
SUN-BN and consider how the evidence generated will be able to inform the network’s focus
in the coming years.