USAID awards $15 million grant to Tufts University for CRSP program

Eileen T. Kennedy, DSc, Dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University announced today that the school has been awarded two grants totaling $15 million by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The USAID "Leader with Associates (LWA) Award" was granted to the school to serve as the Management Entity for a new Nutrition Collaborative Research Support Program (CRSP) in Africa and Asia.  This is the first nutrition CRSP to be awarded by USAID in nearly 25 years.

The Friedman School will lead a consortium of U.S.-based institutions and developing country partners in implementing two concurrent five-year programs across the two continents. The CRSP activities will support the current administration's new "Feed the Future" initiative. "Feed the Future" promotes a new paradigm linking innovative agriculture and health strategies to result in improved nutrition outcomes for children and women in the poorest countries of the world.

The CRSPs represent multi-disciplinary research and action programs that are developed and implemented jointly by the United States and host country institutions and scientists. This integrated approach aims to provide long term and sustainable solutions to under-nutrition through addressing the underlying determinants.

Tufts faculty take a lead in augmenting the academic training of faculty at local universities and training institutions, while working to improve host government technical capacities to deal with nutrition, food security and health problems. The program will also support high-quality locally-owned research that will help enhance farmers' incomes, productivity and market participation, and also enhance the formulation and implementation of national policies and programs designed to improve nutritional outcomes.

"These far-reaching activities have the potential to make a profound impact, not only in the target countries but in neighboring nations as well," Kennedy said. "We're thrilled to support the recently enacted Presidential Policy Directive on Global Development. Our CRSP's will be among the initiatives supporting this historic Presidential Directive."

The consortium of leading U.S. institutions that will work with Tufts on these activities includes:

• Harvard University's School of Public Health,
• Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health,
• Purdue University's Department of Agricultural Economics,
• Tuskegee University's College of Agricultural, Environmental and Natural Sciences, and
• Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI) of Washington, D.C.

Faculty members Dr. Patrick Webb, Dean for Academic Affairs and Dr. William Masters, Professor, will lead the activities in Asia and Africa, respectively. Webb and Masters will coordinate an innovative program of 'research-to-practice' that addresses the priority nutritional, agricultural and food security needs of these regions of the developing world.

The recognition by USAID of the Friedman School's leadership in addressing under-nutrition reflects the recent rankings by the National Research Council of the National Academies, which in September, announced Tufts' Friedman School programs at the top among all nutrition programs nationally. Further addressing nutrition in the developing world, the school has recently announced online graduate certificate programs for mid-career learners in both Applied Positive Deviance and Delivery Science in International Nutrition.  The school will also host their annual Symposium November 4-6 with a focus on nutrition security. Information on all programs and activities is available at http://nutrition.tufts.edu

The Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University is the only independent school of nutrition in the United States. The school's centers, which focus on questions relating to famine, hunger, poverty, and communications, are renowned for the application of scientific research to national and international policy.