Researchers reveal powerful role of women’s groups in transforming nutrition systems

Women’s groups are proving to be important forces in improving nutrition access by gathering collective strength to overcome economic, social, and institutional barriers. Nutrition Insight speaks to researchers from India and Nepal who reveal solutions to gender-based barriers to nutrition access.

According to their perspective paper in Frontiers Public Health, women’s groups guarantee long-term access to nutritious food and resources. 

Monica Shrivastav, a specialist in program and policy research at Population Council Consulting, explains that women’s groups promote financial independence, organize communities, and hold systems responsible. Their impact extends beyond individual efforts — peer support, advocacy, and direct initiatives like community kitchens and nutrition gardens.

However, challenges such as gender norms, inconsistent funding, and limited scalability remain, adds Avishek Hazra, Ph.D., director of the Policy Science program at the consulting group. 

Sapna Desai, Ph.D., senior fellow at the Population Council Institute, suggests that governments and nutrition companies should collaborate with women’s groups as leaders, not just beneficiaries, to drive long-term, equitable change.

How can the government and nutrition companies support women’s groups to grow their work?
Shrivastav: To effectively support women’s groups in advancing nutrition, the government and nutrition companies must go beyond viewing them as mere delivery channels and instead recognize them as leaders and partners in systemic change. 

Key strategies include:

• Design program collaboratively: Develop programs and interventions with women’s groups at the center, ensuring their voices, lived experiences, and needs shape policies and implementation strategies.
• Promoting local, women-led leadership: Foster a “rights-based movement” rather than limiting women’s groups to service delivery roles. Strengthening grassroots leadership ensures sustainable change and empowers women to drive their own nutrition agendas.
• Harnessing the power of women’s rights-based organizations: Partnering with these organizations strengthens justice and equity in nutrition efforts. Women’s groups must have the power to set priorities, demand rights and services, and push for accountability, rather than being passive recipients of aid.
• Building a regional network for collaboration: Establish a South Asia-wide network that connects organizations and institutions to share knowledge, best practices, and advocacy strategies. Joint research, convenings, and policy action can amplify the role of women’s groups in shaping nutrition outcomes across the region.

By prioritizing collaboration, leadership, justice, and collective action, governments and nutrition companies can help women’s groups scale their impact and drive long-term, equitable change in nutrition and health.

Why are women’s groups more effective than individual efforts in improving nutrition?
Desai: Women’s groups are more effective than individual efforts in improving nutrition because they leverage collective strength, peer support, and advocacy to drive lasting change. Their collective approach enables them to influence behaviors, mobilize communities, and hold systems accountable in ways that individuals alone may struggle to achieve.

Without equipping communities with the knowledge and skills to sustain interventions, women’s groups’ impact may diminish once external support is withdrawn (Image credit: Vikram Nayak).When women come together, they amplify their voices, challenge societal norms, and push for better nutrition practices and services. Their shared strength helps overcome barriers such as food insecurity, limited access to healthcare, and cultural resistance to dietary practices.

Women’s groups foster knowledge-sharing and mutual encouragement, making it easier to adopt and sustain healthier dietary habits. Through community-led initiatives like nutrition/kitchen gardens, group savings for food security, and shared childcare, they ensure better access to nutritious food for all members.

Unlike individuals, women’s groups can influence decision-makers from the grassroots (such as local governance, and frontline health/nutrition service providers) to the state level. They work collectively to demand better policies, improved food distribution programs, and stronger nutrition services, ensuring their voices reach policymakers and administrators.

Women’s groups act as watchdogs, ensuring government nutrition programs, ration schemes, and health and nutrition services reach those in need. By monitoring service delivery and advocating for improvements, they help close gaps in access and quality, benefiting entire communities.

By harnessing solidarity, peer influence, and advocacy power, women’s groups create sustainable improvements in nutrition that go beyond what individual efforts can achieve. They transform not just their own lives but entire communities, making them key drivers of health and well-being.

Which pathway has the biggest impact on nutrition, and why?
Hazra: Insights from recent systematic reviews — including those by Kumar et al. (2018) and Desai et al. (2020) — offer valuable lessons.

Broadly, these reviews suggest that economic empowerment, women’s agency, and social and behavior change interventions play particularly strong roles in improving nutrition outcomes. 

Women’s groups promote financial independence, organize communities, and hold systems responsible (Image credit: Evidence Consortium on Women's Groups).When women have greater financial control, decision-making power, and access to knowledge, they are better positioned to secure nutritious food for their families, improve dietary diversity, and advocate for better health services. Additionally, collective action through women’s groups has been shown to be a powerful driver of nutrition improvement by enabling peer support, knowledge-sharing, and local advocacy, which help address both immediate and systemic barriers to nutrition.

How do women’s groups help women get better access to healthy food and resources?
Hazra: Women’s groups serve as powerful women-led platforms that generate community demand, amplify women’s voices, dismantle social and institutional barriers, and empower women to take individual and collective action. 

They improve access to healthy food and essential resources through multiple ways:

• Economic empowerment and livelihoods: By fostering financial independence, women can afford nutritious food, secure household food availability, and improve dietary diversity.
• Community-led behavior change: Using participatory learning and action, women identify challenges, gain knowledge, and collectively implement solutions to enhance nutrition and food security.
• Direct initiatives: Many women’s groups establish community kitchens and nutrition gardens, ensuring vulnerable households have access to healthy food.
• Bridging communities and healthcare systems: They mobilize communities to demand and access services while advocating for improved health and nutrition programs.

What problems do women’s groups face when trying to combine food, health, and social systems?
Shrivastav: To maximize their impact, women’s groups need better alignment with community needs, gender-responsive approaches, sustained resources, and stronger capacity-building efforts to create long-term, systemic change. 

Programs may not always align with the specific priorities, cultural context, and daily realities of the communities they aim to serve, limiting their effectiveness.

Many initiatives struggle to expand beyond small pilot programs, making it difficult to achieve widespread, lasting impact.

Deep-rooted gender inequalities often limit women’s decision-making power, access to resources, and participation in community programs, weakening long-term sustainability.

Many programs depend on irregular funding and short-term initiatives, whereas sustainable change in food and health systems requires long-term investment.

Without equipping communities with the knowledge and skills to sustain interventions, women’s groups’ impact may diminish once external support is withdrawn.