In 2012–14, IFPRI and the UN World Food Programme collaborated on the Transfer Modality Research Initiative (TMRI), a study of social safety nets, to identify which combination of interventions—cash, food, or nutrition knowledge—most helps the ultra poor. The study found that the combination of social safety nets (especially cash transfers) with nutrition behavior change communication is the most effective by far at reducing childhood stunting.
Motivated by these results, the Bangladesh Ministry of Women and Children Affairs has redesigned the country’s largest social protection program for rural destitute women in Bangladesh, the Vulnerable Group Development (VGD) program. Beginning in January 2017, the VGD will include nutrition behavior change communication and will give priority to poor families with adolescent girls and children under two.