The Rashtriya POSHAN Maah is a month-long outreach and behaviour change campaign for awareness-raising on nutrition-related issues and causes and consequences of malnutrition among other things. It is held annually in September under the government’s POSHAN Abhiyaan. This year, we released various knowledge resources throughout the month. These resources focussed on people involved in the delivery of nutrition public services, and fund flows of major government schemes on nutrition.

• Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, on-ground activities held under POSHAN Maah were significantly affected and were replaced with digital campaigns; 13.9 crore ‘digitally backed-up activities’ were organised during September 2020. However, in our analysis, we found that the frontline workers essential to delivering nutrition-related government services faced several challenges during this period. Read what two critical job roles – Anganwadi Workers (AWWs) and Child Development Project Officers (CDPOs) – had to say about POSHAN Maah 2020 in this short video. If you want to read their full interviews and explore their job functions, visit the Inside Districts series website.
• Download this infographic to know what a typical Anganwadi Centre should look like from the inside as per government guidelines.
• This photo essay will give you some insights into the nutritional status of boys and girls under five years of age.
• Download an explainer on the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana, which is a maternity benefit scheme. The scheme provides conditional cash transfers of ₹5,000 to pregnant women and lactating mothers for their first live birth.
• Download an explainer on the Janani Suraksha Yojana, a conditional cash transfer scheme for reducing maternal and neonatal mortality by promoting institutional delivery among poor pregnant women.
• In addition to these two schemes, we also collated the emerging trends in the funds allocated, released, and utilised of government nutrition schemes in this Parliament Roundup. It draws from answers given by the Government of India in the Parliament during the Monsoon Session held between July and August 2021.  

We also organised a session on Twitter Spaces where our research experts discussed the role of funding in nutrition outcomes.