India: Childhood Malnutrition Eradication Program

This project empowers communities through health literacy and connects rural communities with the government health and nutrition services available. This project aims to prove that a holistic, decentralized, community-based approach to malnutrition eradication will have better health outcomes, be more inclusive for children under 5, and will be more cost-effective in the long-run than centralized approaches, especially for rural, marginalized tribal communities. Our team of up to 75 Community Nutrition Educators (CNEs) and 6 District Coordinators has covered enormous ground across 5 districts and 600 villages in Madhya Pradesh.

• To reduce the prevalence of underweight children under 5 years old and to reduce child mortality from malnutrition by strengthening communities and village level government facilities’ capacity to identify, treat, and prevent malnutrition.
• Continue to identify new SAM and MAM cases, refer complicated cases to the NRC and provide home-based counseling for all malnourished children
• Refer 1,000 SAM children to government centers for treatment with a 50% success rate Quarterly
• Conduct 2,500 Community Nutrition Meetings Quarterly
• Conduct 9,000 Individual Family Counseling Sessions Quarterly
• Send CNEs to Nutrition Rehabilitation Centers (NRCs) to help counsel families present
• Continue to develop linkages with government health and nutrition services
• Strengthen institutional capacity with support from World Bank’s India Development Marketplace Award.