Africa Region Working Paper Series No. 99

Abstract

Child malnutrition follows from a host of factors, including food insecurity, disease, limited maternal education and poor nutritional knowledge and practices. Using the baseline survey for the evaluation of the Child Growth Promotion Component (CGPC), this paper describes malnutrition outcomes, determinants of malnutrition at the individual, household and community level for 5700 children in southern Ethiopia, as well as program indicators for the CGPC.

Malnutrition rates are in general similar to findings from national surveys, and expected signs of causation are found with respect to gender and illnesses. The survey shows varying quality of the caregivers’ knowledge and practices on child nutrition and health, and only 58% of the caregivers correctly assess their child’s true nutritional status. The surveyed households have a low resource base, with a high prevalence of shocks. The communities have very low levels of basic health, transport and communication services, and child-related relief programs are only available for a minority of the households. Even though the health personnel of the CGPC shows better knowledge and practices on child malnutrition than the surveyed households in general, two-third of them think that their training for the program had not been sufficient for their job.

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