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Understanding the links between clean water and nutrition

In July 2025, IRC together with the Max Foundation launched a new course called 'WASH and Nutrition Nexus: The basics'. This free 2.5-hour online course is about understanding the links between clean water, safe sanitation, good hygiene behaviour and nutrition. All ingredients that safeguard our health.

Published on: 15/09/2025

This article is based on a LinkedIn post by Marjolijn Wilmink, Co-director of the Max Foundation

The Max Foundation is driven by the conviction that child stunting can and must be eliminated through scalable, system-strengthening solutions that are rooted in evidence and local ownership.

One of the most promising examples of this is the Healthy Village Programme, developed and implemented in close partnership with the Government of Ethiopia and Plan International. This flagship initiative demonstrates how integrating Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) with Food and Nutrition Security (FNS) can significantly reduce child stunting. Evidence generated in Bangladesh and validated by the Karolinska Institute confirms the effectiveness of this approach, delivering not only health improvements, but also behaviour change and system resilience.

To make this integrated approach more widely accessible, we’ve developed a free, online course on WASH and Nutrition Integration, in collaboration with the IRC WASH Systems Academy and supported by the Ethiopian Ministry of Health, Plan International, Right2Grow and other partners. The course is designed for practitioners, NGOs, and government actors who are working to improve child health. It’s practical, flexible, and focused on real-world application.

Participants will gain:

  • A clear understanding of why integration matters, supported by the latest evidence
  • Insight into how to design and deliver integrated programmes, using real case studies
  • Tools and templates to support implementation in their own contexts
  • A personal action plan to move from learning to doing

This course builds on insights shared at a recent learning event in Addis Ababa, where government leaders from Ethiopia and development partners echoed a shared call: the time has come to move from pilots to system change. We must scale what works and integration is one of those proven solutions.

This course is being translated into Amharic to make it accessible for a wider audience in Ethiopia.

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