We strengthen community health systems through capacity building, provision of materials and supplies, and the supportive supervision of community health workers. We support and leverage civil society organisations to support health and nutrition action at community level. We enhance community case management and strengthen community monitoring and referral mechanisms.

We help reduce the burden of illness at the community level. We achieve this by promoting positive health, hygiene and nutrition behaviours and practices through behaviour change communication and community engagement. We strengthen civil society partnerships to promote transparency and accountability for both governmental and non-governmental health and nutrition services and programmes.

We improve access to and uptake of facility- and community-based health and nutrition services, by addressing gender, social, cultural and financial barriers to their use. Our targeted investments in healthcare infrastructure and equipment in government and AKDN facilities improve quality of care.

We strive to enable adolescents to navigate a positive pathway from childhood through to adulthood, by reducing risk, promoting resilience and broadening their opportunities. This is a conduit to addressing underlying drivers of poor health. It includes reducing the risks of violence, harmful attitudes, norms, behaviours and practices that contribute to gender inequality.

We strive to reduce morbidity and mortality amongst adolescents as a result of communicable disease, non-communicable disease, self-harm and injury. This includes a focus on improving adolescent sexual and reproductive health and rights, including access to maternal care and support, interventions to delay parental age at first birth and access to family planning.

We are also contributing to the global evidence base on adolescent health and well-being in several geographies, with a specific focus on addressing knowledge gaps in Central Asia.

We address undernutrition by fostering positive nutrition behaviours and practices. These include infant and young child feeding, reducing micronutrient deficiencies through food-based approaches and micronutrient supplementation. We achieve this through early identification, treatment and monitoring of stunted, wasted and low birth weight children.

We focus on reducing the likelihood of intergenerational transmission of undernutrition. We improve preconceptual health and the nutritional status of adolescent girls, strengthen the health system to better integrate nutrition into ante-natal and postnatal care, and ensure the care and treatment of small and sick babies.

We reduce the burden of overweight and obesity by improving access to and use of a diverse array of nutritious foods, encouraging a healthy lifestyle and fostering positive nutrition behaviours and practices.

Social and Environmental Influencers of Health

We aim to address the social and environmental risk factors and conditions that drive poor health outcomes. We employ programmes aimed at reducing the barriers to access and uptake of health services, poverty alleviation programming and programming that addresses inequality and promotes women’s empowerment.

We acknowledge the increased risk and role that environmental factors play in human health. We address environmental influencers by supporting initiatives which increase access to clean water and household sanitation, and mitigate risks which arise from indoor air pollution. In 2022, we provided over a million people with drinking water and sanitation services.