Four projects across Asia and Africa will test new ways to tackle malnutrition, illiteracy, and plastic pollution by working directly with local communities rather than imposing top-down solutions. These projects address a persistent gap in international development: interventions that work in one context often fail when transplanted elsewhere. The researchers argue that sustainable solutions must be built from local knowledge, materials, and social structures. In Brazil, Jordan, Malaysia, and Thailand, the team will develop child micronutrient supplements using locally sourced ingredients while training regional manufacturers to produce them independently. In India, women’s groups and students will create radio content and a mobile app to share knowledge on sustainable food systems. In Ethiopia, Nepal, Malawi, and the Philippines, ethnographic studies of indigenous family learning practices will inform a new approach to adult literacy. In Malaysia, a network will map microplastic distribution using a cheap, quick methodology and produce a multilingual video manual for consistent data collection. If successful, the projects could shift how development research is designed and evaluated. The evidence gathered across all four sites will be synthesised into general guidelines for future overseas development assistance projects. The work does not promise immediate global change but aims to build capacity and generate transferable models for community-driven innovation in health, education, and environmental monitoring.
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GS-DEV propose four interdisciplinary projects in the areas of health, nutrition, education and environment with great potential for innovation and impact. Evidence and lessons from these projects will be collected and analysed to develop general guidelines for improving the impact of future ODA-based research projects. 1) Development of child micronutrient supplements with regional partners (Brazil, Jordan, Malaysia & Thailand) and regulatory bodies/manufacturers using locally sourced materials and building their R&D capabilities to enable future development of similar products independently. Creative writing and film-making will allow i) communication/engagement with users (children, youth and parents), the general public and the local government on the importance of balanced nutritional diet for child growth & development, and ii) debate the complex causes of malnutrition. 2) Address food and nutrition insecurity in India, a problem confronting a vast majority of women and children, especially in rural, indigenous communities. This will be achieved by working with communities, especially women's groups, youth groups and students to generate and share knowledge on sustainable food systems, in particular production choices and technologies, diets and consumption practices, and their relationship to health and nutrition outcomes. Content, generated using a range of creative tools and strategies, will inform and be shared at scale through an interactive, audio community media platform; supplemented by a mobile app for smartphone users, to provide 24-h real-time response to community needs. Sustainability will be ensured through capacity-building of educational institutions, government functionaries and the wider public at multiple scales - local, regional, national and international. 3) Development of a more sustainable, relevant and 'bottom-up' approach to family literacy, embedded in people's everyday activities and indigenous learning practices that can influence family well-being and livelihoods. In collaboration with UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning and UEA UNESCO Chair partner universities in Ethiopia, Nepal, Malawi & the Philippines, comparative ethnographic studies will be conducted on indigenous approaches to intergenerational learning and knowledge creation, alongside documentary analysis of existing family literacy programmes in these countries. The project includes research-policy interaction and dissemination activities to engage international, national and local stakeholders. Its major contribution will be to bring policy makers' and educators' attention to the disjunction between current mainstream approaches to adult/family literacy instruction and the ways in which adults and children learn in everyday life in order to enhance the contribution of education to sustainable development. 4) Build a network of academics, industry partners and policy-makers in Malaysia to identify and quantify the distribution of microplastics and assess its potential environmental risks. Globally, around half of total plastic production is used for single-use packaging; around 10-14 million tonnes of this ends up in the oceans every year. Plastic gradually breaks down to produce ever-smaller microplastics, which are eaten by and cause stress to a wide variety of organisms that are vital parts of food webs. Counting microplastics in water and sediments is challenging. Through ongoing collaborative work, a cheap and quick methodology has been developed to map microplastic levels and distribution across a range of habitats and ecosystems. Alongside supplying simple equipment, the network will develop a multilingual video manual to aid its use and ensure consistency of practice for data comparisons. A "public information" film will disseminate microplastics-associated problems and research findings to the general public and policy influencers through a range of media options.
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