Prevention of Childhood Undernutrition

This project seeks to improve the well-being and survival of children by improving the delivery of direct nutrition interventions. The project also aims to document lessons learned to inform nutrition-related policy and program practice at national and global levels. The project aims to: (i) use behaviour change communication programs to promote optimal infant and young child feeding practices; and (ii) provide access to nutritional products such as fortified foods to help food-insecure households supplement the diets of their young children in order to provide adequate nutrition. The project aims to combine these nutrition interventions with existing outreach programs in the health sector in order to generate useful knowledge on how to effectively integrate different health-related activities. This project also seeks to generate knowledge to inform and guide global regional and national policies to scale up nutrition and contribute to developing best practices for programming focused on treating for severe acute malnutrition.

The expected intermediate outcomes for this project include: (i) improved uptake of community-based management of acute malnutrition services through enhanced screening and referral; (ii) reduced incidence of acute and chronic malnutrition; and (iii) increased use of evidence on feasibility effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of integrated prevention and treatment programs to design improved policies and to scale up programs to tackle acute and chronic undernutrition in infants and young children.