Child Nutrition

Africa’s progress toward hunger and poverty reduction has faced significant setbacks in recent years. Multiple shocks, including global and regional conflicts and the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, have increased the prevalence of undernutrition and child malnutrition; in addition, significant micronutrient deficiencies persist in the region.

Access to and consumption of healthy diets, including fruits and vegetables, forms a key pillar of food security. Consumption of nutritious foods have been shown to reduce the risks of non-communicable diseases like diabetes and heart disease and to cut rates of early morbidity and mortality. Despite these benefits, however, the world’s population continues to overconsume unhealthy foods, such as those high in sugar, fats, and salt, and underconsume healthier foods.

Policy Seminar: Nutrition-sensitive agriculture program in Burkina Faso improves children's nutritional outcomes

This post originally appeared on the IFPRI.org blog . Written by Smita Aggarwal.

Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP), which combines a public works program with unconditional cash and food transfers, is one of the largest safety net programs for household food security in Africa. But does it actually improve childhood nutrition in the country? A recent project paper from IFPRI’s Ethiopia Strategy Support Program (ESSP) explores this question and finds no evidence that the PSNP reduces chronic undernutrition in preschool-aged children; this finding could be the result of confounding environment, social, or economic factors that need to be addressed.

In the 2016 Global Hunger Index (produced by IFPRI, Concern International, and ), Malawi ranked 88 th out of 118 countries, with 20.7 percent of the population suffering from undernourishment and 42.4 percent of children under 5 years of age suffering from stunting. In the lean season, food and nutrition security poses even more of a challenge; according to an assessment by the Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee, 2016 lean-season food insecurity (stretching from October 2015 – March 2016) was forecast to affect around 2.8 million people.