Food for Thought: Decolonising How Social and Behaviour Change Does Nutrition

Colonialism profoundly shaped global food systems by privileging imported tastes, industrial processes, and top-down scientific knowledge over local foodways and Indigenous expertise. These legacies continue to shape how nutrition is defined, who holds authority, and whose knowledge is valued. Social and behaviour change (SBC), however, offers an important pathway for challenging these narratives by broadening what we count as evidence, and who decides what matters, in nutrition programming. Drawing on MAGENTA's work across West and Central Africa, Bangladesh, Lebanon, and Honduras, the session challenges traditional top-down approaches to research and design. What these projects have in common is their commitment to putting back locally produced, nutritious food at the centre of nutrition strategies, where they belong. We present innovative, participatory approaches-including out of the box qualitative and semiotic research, product co-testing with caregivers and leveraging groups of local actors-that foreground local knowledge and lived experience and overwrite top-down thinking that privileges imported foods and solutions. We also discuss the importance of maintaining programme flexibility and adaptation when community needs contradict existing assumptions or plans. Overall, the panel contributes to the Summit's calls for inclusivity and decolonisation in SBC practice, showing how centring community voice within research and program design can strengthen not only equity but also programme effectiveness.