Using evidence to inform the scale-up and adoption of biofortified orange sweet potato in Uganda
In Uganda, vitamin A deficiency is a health challenge, with 28 per cent of preschool children estimated to be deficient. To address this issue, the international organisation HarvestPlus has been promoting vitamin A-enriched orange sweet potato (OSP) to improve the diets of the poor. HarvestPlus commissioned evaluations to assess the impact of OSP on health and on farmers’ adoption of the crop.
This brief highlights how and why the evidence from these impact evaluations generated credible evidence to help build a case with donors for scaling up the project in Uganda. It finds that HarvestPlus’ advocacy and the close collaboration between the research and implementation teams ensured the generation of useful evidence for evolving programming.